kid's art project: crazy faces

Here's another easy, effective art project we did during the school holidays, on a day when my mum was here with her enthusiasm and ingenuity. All you need is a digital camera and a printer!

Mum and Lizzy took 6 photos of each other, printed them out, cut them into rectangles or squares, arranged them with a nod to Picasso, and stuck them onto cardboard or paper with a gluestick.

I love the way the face parts in Lizzy's picture bend and stretch until it's like looking at a face through a fisheye lens.



Mum's version is more crazy and comical!

kid's art projects: Kandinsky circles in squares

For a long time I've looked at the wall above our dining table and dreamed of creating an original artwork to replace the poorly-framed print which was hanging there. So during the school holidays the kids and I created our very own Kandinsky-inspired Squares with Concentric Circles.

The beauty of this art project is that it's super-easy and suitable for any level of artistic skill, so everyone in the family can add a square. Here's the one we made. It makes me happy every time I look at it!


Here's the artwork which inspired it, by Wassily Kandinsky.

The kids really enjoyed making it.

In fact, they enjoyed it so much that Thomas (6) decide to create his own,

and so did Andy (3)!

Here's how we did it.

• I cut some squares of heavy textured white paper using a craft knife and cutting board. We made ours about 15 cm square to fit our frame, but my friend Jenny filled her frame with a large number of much smaller squares, so take your pick!
• We used good-quality oil pastels to colour the circles. I like oil pastels for their dense, bright colours, but you could use permanent markers, textas, paints, or anything else that takes your fancy.
• We started by colouring a small circle somewhere near the middle of the squares and adding thick and thin rings of different colours. They don't need to be perfect: in fact, squarish, crooked and off-centre look better than perfect rings.
• We arranged the squares and taped them together with masking tape, put them in our frame, and hung the finished product on our wall. Voila!

If you want to see some other art projects for kids based on Kandinsky's painting, see Art Projects for Kids and No Time for Flash Cards.

artwork: castle

When it comes to craft, we love the Usborne series Things to Make and Do. My daughter has collected lots of these books over the years.

A few years ago, back in Lizzy's pink-purple girly dayes, we made this castle from Fairytale things to make and do. It's made with cut-out shapes of tissue paper stuck on with a glue stick and decorated with plastic jewels and LOTS of good-quality glitter glue (a birthday gift) - we got a bit carried away, as you can see!!













We put it in an Ikea frame (a cheap, effective way to display kids' artwork) and it's been hanging in her room ever since.

artwork: cityscape

One of our favourite books is The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas. Here's Andy (3) creating a piece of artwork - a cityscape - inspired by this book.

I cut the rectangles out of tissue paper and cellophane; he stuck them on (with help and a glue stick!); and we took turns to draw the windows with permanent markers.





This piece of art is now hanging in our hall. Andy's face says it all!