The Art Box – July 12, 2010

 

Finally, another Art Box post. :)  Things have been a little unsettled around here lately, and we are just getting back into our routine.  I love having a routine.  I love it very, very much. :)

 

We’ve been doing some outdoor painting lately.  There’s nothing like making a mess in the grass, then washing up in the pool.  It’s the ideal kind of art.  M just loves his makeshift outdoor easel and has been asking for one since summer began (I made one for him last summer too, you can read about how to make one here).  He painted up a storm, and using the clips to hold the paper on was a stroke of genius – he was able to remove and replace paper by himself!

 

Here are two of the three painting he made outside:

  The third painting, is at someone else’s house… the last we saw it was blowing away.  Oops. 

 

M has done much, much more art than this, but I haven’t been very good about taking pictures the past 3 weeks.  You can imagine lots of glue, glitter-glue, and googley eyes, and you’ll pretty much know what it’s looked like. ;)

If you have a kid's art post, link it up below! Be sure to link back here somewhere in your post.

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – June 21, 2010

 

More great picks from M last week for his art box – he chose part of an egg carton, a box of collage thingies, feathers, electrical tape, a small paint roller, dot stickers… and a lot of other things I can’t recall.  He’s an art maniac.  I’m sure this phase will pass though, so I’m trying to enjoy it!

 

Here’s a taste of what he made…

 

Remember how I couldn’t get him to do many bug crafts a couple of weeks ago?  Well one was a caterpillar from an egg carton.  He was not. interested.  No way.  But of course when it’s his idea, he’s all over it.  He thoroughly enjoyed making this caterpillar.  If you can call it a caterpillar, because, you know it has feathers and two faces.  But ok, it’s a caterpillar.

Front face:

back face:

 

He also had a fun time making tape resist paintings with the electrical tape.  I did this one time with him as a structured art project, and he’s never forgotten it. 

   

 

Thanks you for all the encouraging comments last week.  I was honestly expecting to hear that no one is interested, and your comments really meant a lot to me.   I’m feeling very blessed by all my online friendships.  Thanks, everyone, I appreciate you so much!

If you have a post you’d like to link up, look below!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – June 14, 2010

Another week of letting M choose his own art box supplies… I am going to have to limit him to 4 or 5 items per drawer (so 8 to 10 items total) I think, because he just grabs and grabs and grabs, and it ends up looking like this:And honestly, I’m not sure what all was there!   He was a busy, busy boy!

He was in love with the little sticker roll he’s holding in the above picture.  He called it his “sticker machine” and used up the entire 200 stickers.  Yep.  200.  Thankfully I’ve had them for ages, not knowing what to do with them, and they only cost $1.00.

I’ve been thinking of ending my little Art Box series on here because, really, how interesting is it (to someone other than Mama) to see hundreds of paintings and collages made by a 3 year old?  And interest in the link-up seems to have waned (which is fine, I’m just sayin’)… but I realized what  wonderful memories of this time I have from these posts.  M has been nothing if not a creative and artistic little guy; I remember when he was 1 year old and hopping mad about something (who knows what) and after crying and screaming about it, all he wanted was “paint!”  “red!”  :)  He expresses himself so easily with art, and I love looking through his artwork and seeing how he’s progressed. 

Also, I have to say, it’s soooo much easier for me to pitch a bunch of it in the recycling knowing that I’ve got photos of it on here!  ;)

Speaking of recycling, sometimes it irks me a bit when he uses entire sheets of foam in a collage, like this: or those perfectly good pipecleaners, or whatever.  I must say if it’s not a work of art that we intend to keep I eventually strip it of all useful and reusable items before tossing it.  He has no idea how many times he’s used those buttons and craft eyes, etc.

So, on to business…

This week he made the following masterpieces -

Glitter, macaroni, eyes, and buttons:

Tissue paper circles: 

Sparkly pens, flat marbles, buttons, colored glass pieces, shells, pasta, eyes, oh my:

And he tried out some new stencils with his dot markers:

I think he’s leaving the painting phase he was in forever and entering into some new and glorious collage phase. :)

Thoughts or opinions about continuing to make this a linky?  Let me know in the comments!  I’m fine with these posts being  just for my memories, with the hope that others will get ideas of what to supply their preschoolers with.

If you do have a post you’d like to link up… it’s below!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – June 7, 2010

I’ve been doing some major reorganizing around our home lately (more posts on this soon!), and, while rearranging my craft stash, I set up two drawers of one cart for Art Box items. 

 

Now, once a week, M and I go down to our exercise / hobby room and I let him choose items from those two drawers to put in his Art Box for the week.  This has really renewed his interest and enthusiasm for his Art Box!

 

I keep the basics – glue, scissors, paint brushes, etc.  out for him, and he adds in the *fun* stuff – tubes, yarn, buttons, eyes, scrap paper, pipe cleaners, etc.  He really has fun choosing things and has ended up making some very interesting and 3-dimensional art…

 

A  collage made from a cork, pipe cleaners, tissue paper and a peanut butter lid: 

 

A collage for Grandpa (who was absolutely delighted to receive it) made from stamps, glitter, another peanut butter lid (lol), and some scrap felt pieces that M said looked like raviolis:

  

And yet another collage made with paint, scrapbook paper, another lid, a craft stick, pom poms, and buttons.  Whew.

 

A painting made with the roller, which is always a hit:

 

A finger painting, the first one he’s done in ages:

 

And, finally, a colored pasta and pipe cleaner collage:

 

Creativity has been running rampant around here lately, which makes for a very happy mama!

 

Have some kids’ artwork you’d like to share?  Link up below!  Make sure to link back here  somewhere in your post

 

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

The Art Box – 5/17/10

     In the Art Box last week:  new watercolor paints, tempera paints, bug stamps, glue, paper, a handful of collage materials, scrapbook scissors, paintbrushes, sparkly gel pens

We bought some new Crayola watercolor paints over the weekend, and M is in love with them.  They are so bright and vivid… I was sure we’d tried Crayola in the past and they weren’t that much better than the Roseart ones we’ve been using.  I don’t know – maybe they changed up their recipe or something, because these are really beautiful watercolors!  It’s all he wanted to do all week (art-wise).

Here’s a bit of what he did…

Trying them out for the first time:

Three of the many paintings he made with these:

Do you see the “spider” in the last one??  :)

Other than watercolor painting he didn’t do much.  He cut some paper and made me a little stamped card (he called it a card):

And he stuck a googley eye onto his forehead and walked around one evening like this:Swearing, the entire time, that he could actually see us. ;)

Have some children’s art you’d like to show off?  Link it up below (remember to link back here in your blog post)!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – 5/10/10

With 4 play dates last week (all were hosted at our house, I might add…  what was I thinking?) , and the rest of the time spent on errands, playing outside, etc., not much in the way of free art was done.  A couple of crafts for Mother’s Day made their way in to our busy week, but that was about all we had time for.  The Art Box was left untouched, except for this: (Mr. Grumpy was not happy about posing with it, but wouldn’t let go of it so I could take a picture of just the bag.)

It’s M’s new library book bag.  We take home anywhere from 20 to 40 books a week from our library and our old book bag was literally falling apart.  I bought some fabric markers and gave him his brand new bag.  He enjoyed drawing on it, and from what I was able to gather this isn’t anything in particular, just (very) abstract art. :) 

He always enjoys having something “different” to draw, paint, or color on.  I might let him add some embellishments later… we’ll see!

Have some children’s art you’d like to show off?  Link it up below (remember to link back here in your blog post)!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

The Art Box – May 3, 2010

 Oops!  No picture of the Art Box this week, although I was positive I took one.  It had the usual paints, paper, scissors, glue… collage supplies, glitter glue, some tissue paper, foam letter stickers, and a cardboard tube.

M’s big creation of the week was this:A “talking log”. ;)  It has eyes and everything you could want on a talking log… and yes, it does talk… as long as M’s mouth is at one end. :)

He did some watercolor paintings…

This one is of “garden hoses and caterpillars” (seriously, who paints pictures of garden hoses?):

And this one is of “kangaroo pawprints”: 

He made a paint and sticker collage, with a glitter pen drawing in the background: 

And he experimented with making a tissue paper collage: This was actually a big step forward, since all he normally wants to do is toss tissue paper in the air and blow it around. :)

Have some children’s art you’d like to show off?  Link it up below (remember to link back here in your blog post)!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – April 26, 2010

 

In the Art Box last week: stickers, stamps, stencils… plus all the usual paper, glue, paint, etc.

 

I knew the stencils and stamps would appeal to M since they are some of his favorite art supplies.  We did some planned art projects during the week too, so there wasn’t a ton of child-directed art done this week.  But here’s what he did…

Stenciling with his roller paints and some regular tempera too:

 

A collage with stamps, buttons, a pom pom and some hole punched circles.  And some random drawing thrown in too. :)   

A sticker collage with some stamps, stickers, and a craft stick glued on for good measure:

Have some children’s art you’d like to show off?  Link it up below (remember to link back here in your blog post)!

Have a beautiful day! :)