We had this cubby in our bedroom that needed something. I happened to have an unused canvas that needed a little something, too. It was also the perfect day for doing an art activity with my toddler. Mother’s Day is all about being a mom, celebrating mom, honoring mamas all around us, making special memories with your kids and remembering memories that you’ve had with your mom. Making something together that then would be displayed in our home was the perfect thing to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. And, this is pretty much a no-fail way to create something seriously cool to hang in your house. Even if you’re not that crafty you only need a few things, it’s okay if things get messy and all smooshed up, and you can use any color combo you’d like. Older kids can get into creating patterns or intricate designs – or you can just go willy-nilly like we did.

Start by cutting lots of squares out of tissue paper. Older kids can be in charge of cutting tons of squares, big or small, and of any color. Once you’ve got a big pile, mix together equal parts of Mod Podge and water in a small container, get out a few brushes, your canvas (any size), and cover your work area with newspaper.

Now slather the canvas with Mod Podge and start layering on the tissue paper squares. This gets messy – and sticky – but it’s lots of fun. Your kids can watch as the tissue paper squares blend together and create new colors.

Once the entire canvas is covered, let the tissue paper and Mod Podge dry. What’s great is the Mod Podge gives things a nice gloss, creating a really finished feeling.

We decided on accenting our tissue squares with circles, but you can use any shape you’d like. Squirt a few drops of acrylic paint onto a paper towel to create a stamp pad. We found that paper cups created the perfect circle stamps and placed lots of black and white circles all around the canvas.

The finished toddler fine art fit our empty spot perfectly!

And I had a wonderful time spending Mother’s Day with my tot.

(lovely)

The tot and I have really been enjoying this glorious spring weather. While tending to the garden – and checking just about every 10-minutes to see if any strawberries are ready – we’ve been checking out the colors all around us. Thing are pretty cheery right now and I’m trying to soak up every moment. My somewhat-agreeable-but-often-stubborn toddler is growing up, which makes me happy and totally sad all at the same time. It is so awesome when she finds something she’s excited about and to hear her tell me everything she knows (this flower is yellow, bees like flowers, AND bees make honey!).

The one word that comes to mind when describing the artwork of Ted Harrison is cheery. The famed Canadian artist creates whimsical images full of color, line, and natural elements. From mountains to animals to sunsets, Harrison’s paintings are wonderfully simple but amazingly composed. His paintings depicting the Canadian Yukon are iconic and the reason he’s one of Canada’s most celebrated artists.

What I love about Harrison’s paintings is his use of balance. Through line and color, his images are balanced or arranged in a visually pleasing way. Balance is one of those art terms that is part of The Principles of Design, which are concepts that are used to organize or arrange elements of design (which also have their own collection of concepts). Balance is the idea of equal weight within a creation. It can be symmetrical (the same on both sides) or asymmetrical (not the same – or informal) where things work together to create harmony.

While looking at Harrison’s artworks, one can see how he uses line and color to create asymmetrical balance within his paintings. The tot and I spent a bit of time enjoying his creations and observing colors and subject matter. I figured we could create our own Harrison inspired artwork with the help of crayons and watercolor paints!

Older kids can use an artwork of Harrison’s for inspiration or create their own uniquely balance design. Start by outlining the artwork with crayons. Your child can use random colors or ones that correlate with the subject matter. While working, encourage your child to think about if they are creating an artwork using symmetrical or asymmetrical balance.

Once the outline is finished, your child can use watercolor paints to fill in the artwork. Along with creating vibrant areas of color, your child is also honing hand-eye coordination by concentration on painting within the lines. Once again, your child can use color to create balance within the artwork by working symmetrically or asymmetrically.

After the painting has dried, find a special spot to display the vibrant Harrison inspired artwork!

*My toddler is a bit young for this activity, but that didn’t stop us from painting over the crayon and watching as it poped through! I made a second outline drawing and encouraged her to paint her own unique Harrison inspired creation.

It seems everywhere I look there are blossoms, blossoms, blossoms. Spring is officially here, and with it, tons of flowers. While out for a nice walk, the tot and I couldn’t help stopping every few blocks to check out the colorful beauties, which reminded me of amazing Chinese blossom paintings. Full of bright pinks and reds, traditional blossom paintings are delicate and pretty and then lined with black lengths of tree. Blossom trees welcome spring in Asia and are also a large part of Chinese New Year celebrations as decorations.

After we returned from out outing, I pulled out the tissue paper and glue. While I cut several circles of pink, red, and fuchsia tissue, I enlisted the tot to mix together equal parts glue and water in a small container. If your child is old enough to cut with scissors, she can be in charge of cutting tons of different sized tissue circles.

Once there’s a nice pile of tissue circles get out a sheet of white paper and invite your child to sprinkle the tissue circles around the paper and then brush with the glue water. Encourage your child to overlap and layer the tissue as much – or as little – as she’d like.

While the paper is still wet, offer your child a black marker and invite her to draw lines to represent trees and the branches of the trees. The marker washes in with the glue water and tissue, making the artwork dreamy and spring-like. Your child can even use a green marker to add the surrounding grass.

Don’t’ forget to find the perfect spot for displaying your child’s finished spring blossom artwork!

Happy spring!

Earth Day is right around the corner, and with Easter just behind us, I’ve got a stock-pile of egg cartons just begging for repurposing. I had the opportunity to share my favorite ideas with Parents.com, showcasing eight fun and simple ways to transform those egg cartons into something really special. Earth Day is all about celebrating nature and remembering to appreciate the Earth by reusing, repurposing, and recycling. These egg cup activities do all that – and more!

So head on over to Parents.com to check out 8 Creative Egg Carton Crafts and get busy with your kiddies! Want more egg carton inspiration? Check out my adorable egg cup mask that the tot and I put together along with these other awesome egg carton activities.

Everyone is having fun with egg cartons!

Well, Easover has come and gone, and I’ve got a few egg cartons leftover from all those eggs. But, instead of chucking them, I decided we should have some fun. With Earth Day right around the corner, I had lots of ideas for all things reusable. And, my friend over at Tinkerlab was challenging people to get creative with egg cartons, and I had the perfect idea! The tot has been really getting into dressing up and dancing about the house, so making simple masks with those egg cartons sounded pretty good to me – and my daughter, too.

I cut apart two connected egg cups and invited the tot to coat them in paint…

Then we added a sprinkling of glitter, which is also great for honing fine-motor skills!

Once things had dried, I helped by cutting out the center of each cup, making eye holes, and then offered my daughter a selection of colorful pom poms and a bit of glue to dunk and them press on to her creation.

We found a few red feathers and I used the hot glue gun to secure them (and the glued pom poms) to the egg carton mask. To finish the mask, I popped a few holes in the sides and strung with a length of red string. If you have some stretchy elastic, that would work even better!

What’s great about this activity is you can make lots and lots of masks with all the different materials you have hanging around. Older kids can use markers to add details, younger tots can get messy slathering on paint – and more paint – and you can play around with the mask base. Individual cups can be connected together with the help of colorful pipe cleaners, or several strung in a row for something really different.

We enjoyed several hours playing with the finished mask (before it basically fell apart) encouraging my tot’s budding imaginary play skills. But, no problem! When it had finally come apart from too many put-on-and-tear-offs, we gathered together more materials and made another one!

With Easter right around the corner, I wanted to make something special with the tot to celebrate. When I think of Easter memories of candy, cookies, candy, a few Easter egg hunts, candy, and more cookies come to mind. Vanilla, lemon, sugar, whipped cream, and chocolate top my list of Easter goodie must-haves. We had some lovely fresh lemons, which were perfect for tossing together these wonderfully tangy cookies. And we topped them in a really special way – by hand-painting them with vanilla frosting.

Adorable.

This is just about the easiest cookie recipe to put together and inviting the kiddies to slather tangy egg-shaped cookies with edible paint is a perfect way to spend Easter together. Not up  for the baking part?  Simply pick up a roll of store-bought refrigerated cookie dough and you’re good to go.

Ingredients

1/2 c room temperature butter, cut into small cubes

1/4 c powdered sugar

1/4 c sugar

Zest of one lemon

Dash of salt

Juice of that zested lemon

1 egg

1 c flour

For one color of edible paint:

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Drop of vanilla

1-3 drops of food coloring

Water

Directions

Simply toss all the ingredients (sans the flour) for the cookies in a medium-sized mixing bowl and give things a whir with a hand mixer. Once things have come together, slowly add the flour until it’s all incorporated.

Tear off a length of plastic wrap and smooth out flat. Spoon the tangy cookie batter onto the plastic wrap in a line. Now roll up the plastic wrap while rolling the dough, (just like you’re making a play-dough snake) and twist the ends, creating a happy log o-cookie dough, just like you pick up at the store.

Place the wrapped cookie dough on a plate and place in the fridge for at least 2-hours. Or, pop in the freezer for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and lightly grease a sheet pan – or cover with a silpat or parchment paper. Unwrap your cookies and slice on a slight bias (or diagonal) about 1/4 inch thick, and place on the sheet pan allowing about 1-inch space between cookies.

Pop in the hot oven for 10-12 minutes or until the edges start to brown.

Remove from the pan and let cool before painting.

While the cookies chill, make the edible paints. It’s as easy as mixing together the powdered sugar, vanilla, food coloring, and water for each cool you’d like to make. The finished paint should be the consistency of tempera paint. We kept things simple and made red, yellow, and blue paint. And, so things were really nice and clean, I ran our paintbrushes through the dishwasher before painting.

Once the cookies are cool, invite your child to use the edible paints to decorate the lemony Easter egg cookies. Let the frosting set and then enjoy! We piled ours up in a bowl full of green raffia alongside some plain unpainted cookies for a sunny centerpiece.

Happy Easter!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a stack of toddler art that has had its time on the front of the fridge then gets put into a drawer – and then that drawer starts overflowing. Sometimes I cut out parts of the tot’s art for creating homemade cards, but there is usually still a lot of creations that either need to be chucked or repurposed in some creative way.

After watching the morning episodes of Curious George and Cat in the Hat, some sort of crafting show usually comes on. Today happened to be quilting, and the tot was mesmerized.

What is that, what is that, what is thaaaaaaaaaat?!

I tried explaining quilting to my daughter, to which she promptly said, “Wanna make one?”

She pulled up a chair to the table and waited while I figured it all out. And, in that moment, I did. I tugged open that overflowing toddler art drawer, pulled out several creations – along with some scrap paper – and started cutting out squares. If you’ve got a kid that’s old enough to wrangle the scissors, this is a great opportunity to hone those skills.

Offer your child a square-shaped object to use as a template. Encourage your child to trace around the shape and then cut out lots and lots of squares from the papers. I used a square cut from some scrap cardboard for cutting mine.

Now mix together equal parts glue and water and get out a sheet of white paper. Invite your child to paint the backs of the papers and then press on the paper creating rows of squares, just like a quilt.

I was amazed with how my daughter really got into this project. She concentrated on painting the entire backside of each square and then carefully positioned the square of paper, creating a finished paper scrap quilt just like the fabric ones she had seen on the big TV.

And, as soon as she was finished with this one, she wanted to make more, more, more. For fun, have each member of the family make their own quilt square and then tape them all together for a big paper scrap quilt. Or encourage your child to create a pattern or design within the paper scrap quilt.

Happy quilting!

The other day the tot and I got out the paints and spent some time swirling and moving our brushes all around our papers. My daughter was pretty insistent on using one color for covering the entire area. While watching her concentrate, I couldn’t help thinking of the color field modern paintings by Barnett Newman. Newman’s famous creations, which he called, “zips,” filled canvases with colors strikingly divided by a thin straight line. He was considered an abstract expressionist and one of the big players in the American color field movement during the late 1950′s.

While the tot was busily painting away, I pulled up a few of Barnet Newman’s paintings and shared them with her. She yelled out colors and pointed while I scrolled through the images. This is an ideal project for toddlers, perfect for honing fine motor skills through holding and painting with a small brush and encouraging tots to think of the whole picture – or using the entire paper for creating.

Get out a plastic place mat or a few sheets of newspaper, a sheet of white paper, a length of painter’s tape, several small paintbrushes, a small container, and tempera paint. Get your child set up with the place mat – or newspapers – and then place the paper in front of her.

Offer your child a length of painter’s tape that is just a bit longer than the width of the paper. She can pick the perfect spot for pressing it onto her paper and the place mat underneath.

Now your child can select which color she’d like to use for her Newman inspired color field painting. My tot yelled out, “RED” and red it was. I squeezed a bit into a small container and got her set up with a few different sized paintbrushes.

Encourage your child to swirl and move her paintbrush all around the paper, covering the entire area. This takes a bit of concentration – and motivation, so sit on down and keep your tot focused on creating a solid paper full of color. Kids at this age love to scribble away, which is exactly what this abstract art activity is all about, except with paint!

Once the entire paper is covered, let things dry before inviting your child to carefully peel of the tape. Now your child can make another exciting abstract color field creation using two pieces of tape – or three – and as many colors as she’d like. Display the finished creations together showcasing the big areas of color.

Left-brain art activities don’t have to be boring – they can be filled with exciting ways for enticing kids to tap into the benefits of combining both sides of the brain into one fun creative machine.  Kids often let the dominant left-brain take charge forgetting the beneficial creative right-brain completely, leading to comments such as, “I can’t draw.” Encouraging creative left-brain art activities promotes self-confidence and the child’s brain to work together when getting creative and problem solving.

Toddlers 

Young kids greatly benefit from activities that engage the left-brain in creative art projects. Introduce kids to shapes along with the math concept of pattern through a fun water resist art activity.

-Look at patterns with the child and discuss how they are created. The left-brain is encouraged when the big picture is looked at instead of the small parts of a project.

-Offer your child a sheet of white drawing paper and a set of crayons. Younger children can enjoy the process of engaging the logical left-brain through creating simple shapes, while older toddlers can attempt to create patterns using both colors and shapes. Or, if you’ve got a real young one, help them out by creating a few shapes together.

-Remove the crayons once he’s finished making patterns. Your child can now paint all over the paper using watercolors, practicing dipping his paintbrush into the paints on his own, which develops fine-motor skills. Invite him to paint without concern for staying within lines or following any set directions, allowing his creative right-brain to coordinate with his left.

-Discuss the finished artwork together further engaging the child’s visual cortex and his creative development. Talk about what he liked about the art making process and encourage him to explain his finished patterns.

Children Aged 5 to 7

As kids age and become more critical of their artwork, encouraging left-brain art reminds them that artwork doesn’t have to solely rely on creativity but can be accomplished through using left-brain skills, too. Create a geometric design with your child, which encourages basic math knowledge as well as artistic skills.

-Discuss geometric shapes with your child, having him draw pictures of as many as he can and then write the names of the shapes, further engaging his left-brain.

-Invite the child to select three shapes to use for his geometric design.

-Give the child a sheet of white drawing paper and have him draw the first shape he selected with a marker so that it almost touches the sides of the paper. Offer him the use of a ruler to help create his lines. Then he can draw the second shape within the first, and the third within the second shape, making his three shapes all within each other.

-The child can now use markers to color each shape in, using a different color for each shape.

-Discuss how the finished creation is an abstract masterpiece, full of shape, line, and color.

Children Aged 8 to 13

Older children begin to lose interest in art as they age, which is also partly due to art classes not always a part of many middle schools and high schools as a required subject. Preteens are at risk of missing out on honing creative skills and finding ways to remind the brain that merging right and left-brain talents helps form a complete human being. Challenge kids by creating a 3D sculpture from a piece of construction paper.

-Provide the child with an 8 by 10-inch piece of construction paper and invite him to figure out a way to create a freestanding 3-dimensional form using solely the paper and a pair of scissors.

-Look at modern sculptures by the American artist David Smith, and discuss how he came up with the motivation to make the interesting forms. Discussing artwork stimulates the visual cortex and promotes use of the right brain.

-Brainstorm ideas for how your child can create the sculpture. Working through the problem to find a solution kick starts the left-brain, making it ready for the challenge.

-Encourage the child to fold, cut, and shape the flat paper into a form that is able to stand on its own without support.

-Once finished, display the folded and cut marvel in a location for the whole family to enjoy.

Young Adults

Once kids hit young adulthood, they become aware of their inabilities in the area of the arts. Most feel they aren’t creative, where in reality creativity is hiding out in the right-brain just itching to get out.  By creating a mathematical grid drawing, your child is able to easily and comfortably recreate an image without fear of mistake or disappointment – and pulling out that hidden creativity.

-Chuck Close is an American artist that uses mathematical grids to recreate photographs into larger than life portraits using pointillism. Look at examples of his work with your teenager and discuss his techniques.

-Invite your child to find an image from a magazine or an actual photograph to recreate in the style of Chuck Close.

-Using a ruler and some basic math, he can figure out how to enlarge the small image onto a larger piece of paper. For instance, if the photograph selected is 4 by 6-inches, he can create a grid with marker lines every 2-inches around the image. The small 4 by 6-inch image can be enlarged onto a 12 by 18-inch piece of paper with a grid drawn lightly in pencil every 6-inches around the paper.

-Your child can use markers to recreate the image using large and small dots of color, encouraging the left-brain to work methodically from one square to the next in the grid formation.

-Due to the left-brain not feeling challenged to create a realistic image, the right brain is able to offer a helping hand, which allows your teenager’s artistic abilities to shine through without him even realizing it.

-Display the finished grid drawing alongside the picture, sharing with others how the artwork was created.

By encouraging kids to use their left-brain and their inner creativity, they will feel confident about their artwork and also feel ready to share their creativity with others.

The weather outside is definitely no longer frightful. The blossoms are blossoming, bulbs are popping flowers, and the grass sure seems a lot greener. While out on a walk with the tot the other day, she got caught up admiring the fresh yellow flowers adorning the sidewalk. She picked several, positioned a few in her hair, and then proceeded to squish the rest of them up.

Oh, to be three.

When we got home, she was determined to paint a picture. While getting out the paint, I had a flash of those dreamy, romantic paintings by Monet. I grabbed the trusty laptop and pulled up a few images for the two of us to check out. Claude Monet is a mega artist – pretty much everyone has heard of him or seen his art at some point. He is considered the Big Daddy of French Impressionism, which was all about capturing the light and impression of a scene or object through small brushstrokes of color. In fact, the style was named after his painting titled, Impressionism, Sunrise 1872.

I shared a few examples of Monet’s water lily paintings with my daughter while encouraging her to comment on colors in the pictures. I gathered together the colors she yelled out along with two sheets of white paper.

This is an art activity perfect for kids of all ages. The really young can explore making marks and learning more about color theory by watching the colors blend together. Older kiddies can focus on color arrangement and creating a finished painting just like one of Monet’s.

Offer your child several different colors of tempera paint similar to the ones found in Monet’s water lilies’ paintings or colors she thinks of during spring. Along with a collection of paints, have a few paintbrushes close by, too.

Place one of the sheets of paper on your workspace. This gets a bit messy, so place the paper on a few sheets of newspaper or scrap paper. Now your child can dip a paintbrush in a color of tempera paint and dab, dab away on the paper, just like Monet.

Encourage your child to select a fresh paintbrush, dip into a new color, and continue dabbing. Keep dipping and dabbing until the paper is just about covered.

Now place the other white paper next to the painted paper. For the younger ones, offer a nice wet paintbrush to use for swirling all over the paper. Older kids can dip and paint the water around the paper until it’s lightly coated (not dripping wet…).

Carefully flip the water-downed paper on top of the dappled painting and give it a light press all around. The bit of water will help blend and swirl the dabs of paint together, giving it a really wonderful Impressionistic feel. Some of the paint might squeeze out the sides, but that’s okay.

Lift off the paper revealing your child’s watery, colorful spring impressionistic creations. Display on the  family fridge or use for making bright spring cards!