Art Time! Autumn oil pastel artwork

 

M and I recently made some autumn-themed artwork with oil pastels.  They turned out so pretty and were fun to make too.  M had to get past an initial “this feels weird on my fingers, and oh ack, it is making them dirty too” sort of thing, but then I reminded him that he is washable and he began to enjoy the process. :)  (That conversation was a bit surreal for me, considering the fact that he is normally drawn to dirt and messiness.)

Our supplies:

Construction paper in light colors, and cut in half (we used a light brown, white, and yellow); shape templates cut out so there are both the negative and the positive pieces (I found these printable shapes at Lakeshore Learning – they have quite a few free printables); and oil pastels.  We tried using cotton balls to smear the pastels, but found using our fingers gave us a much better result. 

The framed picture is there because we took a few minutes to look at it and talk about the many, many autumn activities going on in it.  I love this set of seasonal prints that I got for free at a book sale.  They weren’t painted by anyone famous or anything, but the detail and the style really appeal to me.  I’ve framed them and placed them in our breezeway above M’s little desk (we’ll switch them out each season):

We talked about the colors of autumn, and M decided that just about any color can be an autumn color if you do it right, so we decided to use all the colors of oil pastels.

We each chose a cut out shape, or a page with the shape missing, and talked a tiny bit about how these are referred to as positive and negative spaces. 

To do this, place your shape on a piece of paper, and color around the outline, using quite a bit of pressure: 

Then use your finger to smear and smudge the color onto the paper.  For the above photo, you’d smear the pastel outward, for the photo below M smeared it inward: 

And look – pretty, pretty artwork:

We made several of these and plan to string them into a banner.  Hopefully I’ll have a picture of that to share at the end of the week.

The inspiration for this art project was from this post over at Catholic Icing.  I thought it would make a beautiful project for fall.  It would be fun to do something similar with watercolors, don’t you think?  That just might have to make it onto our art to-do list!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Oct. 21, 2011

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”

      - Henry Ward Beecher

 I never see M more joyful than when he is playing in the leaves!  But why does he wear his bike helmet non-stop?  Do your children do this?? :)

Technology really seems to have something against me this year.  I lost my USB cable for my camera, so there are not many photos for this week.  {Sigh.}  We actually had a really great week and I was very excited to write about it.  Ah, the irony. :)

However, for you that means a nice short and sweet post. :)  Here’s a bit of what M’s week was like…

Nature Basket – I recently added a magnifying glass to this to add a new level of interest.  Here are M’s fall treasures thus far:

Pinecones, sticks, interesting weeds and rocks, a cattail, 3 feathers,
and a shell from our river walk. 

 

Remember last week when he learned our phone number and how to properly use a phone?  Well, this week he learned our cell phone number, and took to calling himself and talking to himself on both the cell and the home phone: I am not kidding.  He was actually having a conversation with himself. :)  Looks like a good one too, doesn’t it?

 

FINE MOTOR SKILL WORK:

Scissor Practice – I folded some construction paper in half and drew one half of an image on the front: M had to try to cut right on the lines and then guess what it was before he opened it up.  This tied nicely into our recent discussions about symmetry too.  Interestingly, he didn’t guess any of them right.  He guessed a hill, a blahblahblah (some nonsense word), a Christmas tree (?!), and a robot.  :)  They turned out to be, in order: a pumpkin, an acorn, a leaf, and a scarecrow – he could tell when they were opened up (thankfully!).  I drew the pumpkin, acorn, and scarecrow freehand, and found a maple leaf template on Google Images (I’m not sure of the link, but there are many available).

He did great with these and stayed right on the cutting line, having trouble only with the scarecrow who unfortunately lost part of his hat, and had his head entirely cut off. :)  Thank goodness for tape!  M had a lot of fun putting funny faces on them (the stickers are from Michael’s) and hanging them on the window!  This turned out to be a big hit!

 

Lacing cards – I sometimes forget about these, but we have many of them, and it is easy to make your own.  M still loves to do these, and he comes up with new things to do with them:Like “sew” them together and hang them up as part of the fall decor.  Sometimes I think our home looks like we have a 5 year old decorator, and then I realize we actually do and that I love it. :)

 

Caramel Apples – We had fun making caramel apples this week – just 3 of them because somehow we ended up with a very small amount of caramels. :)  M was in charge of unwrapping all the caramels (great fine motor work that takes a long time, but is highly motivating): 

I think we added a bit too much milk to the mix because even after our caramel had cooled and we had dipped the apples, only a very thin layer covered them.  But they were delicious!  And I think they were beautiful, don’t you?

 

Crocheting!  That’s right – crocheting!  I’ve been crocheting for over 30 years now, and over the summer M took a huge interest in this and we’ve been crocheting up a storm together ever since.  This is how we do it:My hands are on bottom, holding the crocheted fabric.  I love seeing how much alike our hands look. :)

It is too difficult for him to maneuver the crochet hook and yarn while holding onto the fabric, so we snuggle up and I hold the fabric for him.  He does everything else and he has really gotten very good at it.  Of course I guide him and talk him through it as needed.  It’s a good little extra snuggle time for us. :)

Here’s a “shaving washcloth” he made for Daddy’s birthday:

We did manage to squeeze in some math, science, art, and a little phonics work too, but those pictures are still waiting.  Hopefully I’ll be able to share them next week!

 

Linking up to:

 

 

 

Have a beautiful day! :)