Rustic Birds - Mixed Media on Wood

This was a fun and easy project done the week of Mother's Day.  We started with raw 2" x 6" wood pieces (cut into 7 1/2" & 4" lengths).  I had the kids paint the front side of the board with white gesso.  While it dried, they used bird templates to trace and cut bird shapes out of scrapbook papers.  Then I had them use sandpaper to rough up the edges and bring out the grain of the wood.  We then "stained" the wood with liquid acrylics (rubbed in with a damp cloth and then removed, leaving the stain in the cracks and edges).  The bird wings were hand sewn by the students with felt and fabric then cut out with pinking shears.  Finally we adhered the birds with mod podge and the wings & button eyes with glue (the photos were taken while the glue was still wet so they look white but will dry clear).  I am sure there were a lot of happy moms that week!

Mixed Media Daisies - After School Art Class

 Ok I think I am officially in love with mixed media projects!  This was such a fun and easy project for my after school art class students.  And the results were so beautiful!  We had an exhibit of the girl's artwork last week and this seemed to be the project that got the most comments.

Materials used:  12"x12" canvas panels, acrylic paints (blue, green & coral), mod podge, scrapbook paper.

The girls used a small plastic bowl to trace a circle onto their canvas.  I let them choose the location of the flower's center.  Then I had them paint the background with a random mix of blues and greens blending a little as the colors overlapped.  The centers of the flowers were painted coral.  No need to be perfect with the paint because the paper covers most of it.

While the paint dried, the girls selected papers for the flower center and petals.  We made sure the colors were complementary and that there were light and dark papers for some contrast.  Then the fun part...  The girls cut random sized circles out of the papers for the center of the flowers and, for the petals, they tore long strips and made sure that both ends were rounded.  One thing we noticed is that the thicker the paper the harder it was to tear in straight lines.  We had a much easier time of it with thinner papers without texture.  Once they decided on the placement of their petals, they glued the pieces down with mod podge making sure that both sides of the paper were well coated.  Once all the pieces were in place, we sealed the whole canvas with a final coat of mod podge.

Whimsical Fox Painting - After School Art

 This was a tricky project.  The drawing part took a while, but I think it was worth the effort.  The foxes turned out so cute!  Great lesson in color and pattern too.  It took about 2 1/2 hours to complete.  We did it with acrylics on canvas.  I love the different "personalities" of the foxes.

Mixed Media Nest - Kid's Art Class

 I think this may be my favorite project.  The girls had a blast cutting up book pages.  I found an aged book that was already very brown so we didn't have to even add any extra color to the paper.  

We talked about movement and the way the bird nest is sort of chaotic & criss-crossed in the center then becomes circular around the edges.  When they painted the background we used several colors of cream, raw sienna and gold.  Then they used pastels to add shading around the edges of the blue paper eggs they had cut out.  Once the background was dry, the book paper and eggs were mod-podged to the nest leaving the under-painting showing in places.  We also talked about layering the eggs so they had the right perspective. 

 My Example

 by 9 year old

 by 11 year old

 by 11 year old

 by 8 year old

 by 11 year old

 by 9 year old

Monet Waterlilies Bridge - Kid's Art Class

The girls did a great job as usual on this painting project.  

We used a Monet painting as our inspiration.