Kid’s Art: Root Creatures

crane creature made from a painted root

bird made from root and paintEma, Adia and I made some really cool creatures using roots we found on the lakeshore. We picked them up because we thought each of these looked at least vaguely critter-like. Today we painted several of the roots to try to bring out the little features in the wood that looked like something or another. How do you like them now?

Root CreaturesWe have a horse, a gnome, an elephant-deer-bird, and another bird — a long-legged crane.

The following tutorial was written by Ema and Adia:

Have you ever wanted to make an imaginary creatures? Well here’s how. All you need is a few sticks and some paint. You can make whatever you can imagine when you look at the sticks.

You will need:

  • sticks, driftwood or roots
  • hot glue*
  • acrylic paint**
  • brushes
  • something to use for bases for the creatures that will stand up*** …. or
  • tiny eye hooks and some monofilament for creatures that will fly (hang)

EmasHorseCollage-imp

I got a funky root and I kept turning it and turning it and looking at it from different angles and then I saw that it looked like a horse. So I painted it to look like a red roan horse, specifically my favorite horse, Rosebud, who lives at my Grandma’s house in Anaconda. I glued mine onto the base instead of drilling a hole because it stands up by itself.  — Ema, age 10

Gnome by Adia, age 8
Gnome by Adia, age 8

I made a gnome. A gnome is a little person with a beard. Santa Claus is a gnome. My gnome has a really tall red hat and is walking across the log that is my base. One leg is shorter than the other because he is walking. He also has a really long white beard and tall white boots. I drilled a hole in the base and glued my gnome’s longest leg into the hole. He looks like Santa. — Adia, age 8

MaureensCrane-imp

One of my roots looked exactly like a long, curved-bill crane so I made a fantasy bird that I named, an “oo-ooga crane.” This is the sound it makes when it’s happy. It has green and blue feathers with white spots. Also some yellow and orange eyes. I glued one of the crane’s legs into a hole in the walnut base. — Maureen

Elephant Deer Bird Detail

Maureen's Elephant Deer-Bird

My other root reminded me of an elephant with wings. It has big long trunk, two skinny wings and a tail. I added little antlers so it’s an elephant-deer-bird. I painted the antlers blue because the Huichol Blue Deer is special to me. This one hangs from the ceiling because it’s flying. I screwed in a tiny eye-hook and hung the bird by a piece of monofilament. — Maureen

NOTES FROM THE TUTORIAL AND SUPPLY LIST:

*We used a little hot glue to attach odds and ends of roots to our creatures.

**For painting the creatures, you don’t have to completely cover the surface of the wood with paint. Leaving some of the natural wood showing looks really cool.

***If you want to make bases, cut some nice wood in a square or rectangle or any shape. Sand it so it’s nice and smooth. Sand the edges to make them roundish so they aren’t sharp. Figure out if you want to drill a hole or just glue on your creature onto the base. We made our bases out of scraps of walnut wood, the trees that grow actual walnuts on them.

root creatures11-improot creatures10-imp

 

Below, we have a few other roots we haven’t painted yet. We are going to keep making these creatures. One of these roots is going to become a flying dragon with a tail made of smoke and fire coming out of its mouth. What do you see in these?  Please let us know in the comments.

Driftwood Root Driftwood Root Driftwood Root

Driftwood Root

 

Kid’s Art: Clothespin Puppets

clothespin puppet fish

clothespin puppet fishWe had an idea on our Summer Fun Pinterest board both girls wanted to make, so here’s what we did:

Clothespin Puppets

What you need:

  • clothespins (the kind you pinch to open)
  • heavy weight paper or lightweight cardboard *
  • acrylic paints, markers or other tools to decorate the puppets **
  • hot glue, regular glue (like Elmer’s) ***
  • scissors
  • paint brushes if you decide to use paint

hatching egg clothespin puppet clothespin puppet fish clothespin puppet chameleon clothespin puppet chameleonHow to make the puppets:

  1. Decide what you want to make. We liked the idea of a mouth opening to reveal something inside. Ema also made an egg that “hatches.” You could choose to make a person whose mouth opens to show a word-bubble, or an envelope that opens to show a letter inside. We mostly got our ideas from this lovely Flickr user, Molas & Company, but I can think of lots more ideas… get creative!
  2. Draw your shapes on heavy weight paper and cut out.
  3. Cut through the middle of the shape so you have two halves to glue to the two parts of the clothespin
  4. Paint or otherwise decorate your puppet shape.
  5. Make the inside piece and attach to the bottom of the puppet shape.
  6. Figure out the best placement of the two halves, on your clothespin.
  7. Hot glue the two halves of your puppet shape onto the bottom and top of the clothespin.

Have fun with your puppets:

clothespin fish puppet
Headline: Very brave whale tries to eat prehistoric sea dinosaur even with mouth full of boat!

Adia played with her puppets while watching Fantasia, above. They are interacting with the movie. That’s what I call active-watching (and a brave puppet whale!)

clothespin puppet fishNotes & Tips:

* One of the puppets we made using a lighter weight paper because Adia liked the color. The paper sort of curled, so I would suggest a heavier weight (cover stock is perfect) paper.

** We used acrylic paints and I limited the girls to just black and white (and gray mixed from the two colors.) Use brushes or any other tool you can think of, to apply the paint. The tan chameleon has a texture made by stamping white paint with the tip of a sponge brush (see photo below.) You could also use a pencil eraser to make polka dots. Get creative!

If you use a heavy weight paper, or light cardboard, you could decorate the puppets with glued on buttons, sequins, beads, felt, bits of fabric, ribbons, or pieces of magazine photos.  Very young artists could use stickers.

*** We used Elmer’s glue to attach paper bits to the paper puppet shapes. Hot glue to attach the puppet shapes to the clothespin. Use whatever glue you think will work best with the stuff you’re applying to your puppets.

Clothespin Puppet Critters
An egg that hatches, a whale swallowing a boat, a big fish eating two smaller fish, two chameleons eating flies and a frog eating a butterfly. Your imagination is the limit!
This texture was made by stamping the tip/edge of a sponge brush filled with white paint, on tan paper
I made this texture by stamping the tip/edge of a sponge brush filled with white paint, on tan paper

Links for Clothespin Puppets:

 

 

Art and Science Smash-Up: Milk Swirls Paintings

Milk Swirl Painting

milk and food coloring paintingI saw this idea on Photojojo a couple of days ago and immediately thought of doing this with Adia, who is very good at math and science. When I suggested this fun experiment for today, she was all over it! She remembered seeing the project on a website she called “Science Steve.”  Here is an excerpt from Steve’s post about this Color Changing Milk:

The secret of the bursting colors is the chemistry of that tiny drop of soap. Dish soap, because of its bipolar characteristics (nonpolar on one end and polar on the other), weakens the chemical bonds that hold the proteins and fats in solution. The soap’s polar, or hydrophilic (water-loving), end dissolves in water, and its hydrophobic (water-fearing) end attaches to a fat globule in the milk. This is when the fun begins.

The molecules of fat bend, roll, twist, and contort in all directions as the soap molecules race around to join up with the fat molecules. During all of this fat molecule gymnastics, the food coloring molecules are bumped and shoved everywhere, providing an easy way to observe all the invisible activity. As the soap becomes evenly mixed with the milk, the action slows down and eventually stops.

Milk Swirl Painting in ProgressSteve’s description of this experiment explains that it’s important not to stir the colors and the milk with the cotton swabs, but Adia couldn’t stop herself. She seemed much more interested in seeing what would happen when you stir all the colors together (you get a grayish tan color that looks totally unappetizing!)

I convinced Adia to let me to take photos along the way, before the colors were all mashed together. Aren’t these cool? The blue one looks a little like an angry face.

milk swirl painting in blue milk swirl paintings Green and Red Milk Swirl Painting Green and Red Milk Swirl Painting

What You Will Need

  • Whole or 2% milk (must have some fat for the science to work)
  • Dinner Plate
  • Food coloring (red, blue, green, yellow. We also used Neon colors)
  • Dish-washing soap (We used Ivory Liquid, but some sites say Dawn works best)
  • Q-tips (cotton swabs)

How to Make your Milk Swirl Paintings

Pouring milk for milk swirl painting
Pour a thin layer of milk onto a dinner plate that has a lip (we had to level our plate with a shim under one side

 

Beginning of Milk Swirl Painting
Put a few drops of food coloring into the milk
Green and Yellow Milk Swirl Painting
Touch the soapy swab to the colors in the milk and watch what happens.
Milk Swirl Painting
The color zooms away from the swab tip and makes beautiful, interesting shapes. You can keep dabbing the swab onto the colors, add more drops of color if you want.
Green and Yellow Milk Swirl Painting
You can also drag the swab lightly through the colors to make swirls and shapes.
Green and Yellow Milk Swirl Painting
Take photos! These make really cool abstract designs

Milk Swirl PaintingLINKS AND IDEAS:

Photojojo has a very clear, short video showing how to do this science/art project
Steve Spangler’s Science Experiment, Color Changing Milk. He even has a section on tips to turn this fun activity into a science fair experiment.
Here is a detailed description with great progress photos, of Steve’s color-changing-milk experiment.

How to make Chalkboard Signs from Old Kitchen Bits

chalkboard sign

chalkboardOur local Habitat for Humanity has a depot for sourcing used building materials, called ReStore. I love to stop in regularly to see what they have that I might up-cycle into something useful, even though we are not  building or remodeling right now.

Last week I went to ReStore specifically to find something I could turn into small chalkboard signs with Ema and Adia and I scored! I found some old white frame and flat panel kitchen cupboard parts that already had that slight shabby-chic look that’s so popular now. I already had a can of chalkboard paint, though if I didn’t I would be writing now about making our own chalkboard paint.

A sign she can hang on her bedroom door, to change at her whim
A sign she can hang on her bedroom door, to change at her whim

The girls painted two drawer fronts to use as signs on their bedroom door. We also made one for my kitchen, and another for Jaime’s office.

chalkboard sign
A little something special for my friend’s office

Here is how we made our chalkboard signs:

Supplies Needed:

  • Something to use for the board. We used drawer-fronts and cupboard doors. You could also use an old mirror, or any flat piece of wood or substrate that will take the chalk paint. 
  • Chalkboard paint (You can  make your own if you want. I found directions here.)
  • Acrylic paint if you want to add decorative designs to the frames
  • Modge Podge (matte or gloss) to seal the decorative paint (don’t use Modge-Podge on the chalk paint, though!)
  • Sponge brushes or a good quality flat bristle brush for painting the chalk paint
  • Smaller brushes for the decorative design
  • Metal hanger or brads, for the back of the board
  • A ribbon, to hang between the brads if you choose

Instructions:

  1. Lightly sand the surface of whatever you are using for your chalkboard, so your paint will adhere
  2. Use acrylic paint to make decorative designs around the frame of the cupboard door or drawer front. Use brushes appropriate to acrylic paints and the size of your frame and strokes.
  3. Use a sponge brush or flat-bristle brush to apply the chalkboard paint — we didn’t worry about getting the edges perfectly even because we wanted a shabby-chic effect. Also, I like the way the brush strokes and imperfections show on the chalkboard part of our signs.
  4. Let dry. Seal with a layer of Modge Podge and again, let dry.
  5. Add brads, metal picture hangers, or good tacks on the back of the frame. Add picture wire, string or a lovely ribbon to hang your sign by.
  6. Enjoy changing the message on your sign whenever you feel like it!
chalkboard sign
A removable red painted hanger gives Jaime something to hang notes on.

Additions we made to Jaime’s sign:  we added a red painted wire clothes hanger and some clips so Jaime can hang notes, photos, whatever. Like it?

Links and Other Chalkboard Ideas:

  • Comparison of homemade chalkboard paints — author also has some good ideas on using chalk paint on salvaged furniture
  • Fun diy magnetic chalkboard idea. Making this next!
  • Paint chalkboard risers on steps and write poetry
  • Pinterest board with tons of chalkboard ideas (just a side note: I really appreciate it when people include the ORIGINAL source with their pins on Pinterest. On the other hand, it irks me greatly when people steal others’ photos by downloading, then pinning to their own Pinterest boards without giving credit where credit is due. Just sayin’)

3 Ways to Have Fun in One Summer Day

Painted Driftwood Sticks

Painted Driftwood Sticks

  1. Attend the Exploration Works/Holter Science of Art Day Camp. Then have french fries and other unmentionable deliciousness.
  2. Head out to Lake Helena Reservoir to collect driftwood sticks of a certain size and smoothness. Take Charlie along for sweetness and chuckles.
  3. Paint your sticks while eating dried seaweed on the porch, all the while enjoying an afternoon thunderstorm.
solar ovens by kids
Teams of kids made solar ovens at Exploration Works

It has been 10 days since Ema and Adia and I spent the day together making art, playing with Charlie and doin other summer kid stuff. I actually missed them. And I think maybe they might have missed playing with me too. When I picked them up at the Exploration Works Science Museum at noon, they both gave Charlie and me big hugs and smiles.

So … we went to a fast food place for lunch (it shall remain unnamed — grin) just to do something totally unexpected and different. The girls liked it. (I remembered why I don’t eat there.)

Lake Helena
After lunch we headed out to the lake to collect sticks for our afternoon art project. Charlie also wanted to get in the water and show us his favorite trail. We could tell there was a thunderstorm brewing over the town.
drill press
Back in town, Tim let us use his shop’s drill press to make holes in our sticks.
painting sticks
Adia stayed absorbed in this activity for a long time — she’s the one who colors outside the lines. 🙂

Thunder and a sweet summer rain kept us company while we painted our sticks. It’s my favorite kind of weather — a warm thunderstorm when you’re nice n’ dry on the porch so you can feel the hairs rising on your skin but you don’t get drenching wet. Welp, that was fun! And definitely something 8 to 10 year olds can handle.

painting stick art
Ema is meticulous … taking her time and considering each brush stroke. Her color choices are fun!
painted stick art
Ema’s finished artful sticks, ready to be threaded and hung tomorrow
Painted Stick Art
Adia’s awesome finished sticks, ready to be threaded and hung as a sculpture tomorrow

Tomorrow it’s time to turn in our Chalk It Up Helena applications. We will have a cooking lesson (Pepperoni Pizza Puffs) and try to finish our stick projects. We’ll show you the finished results next time, okay?