When a shipment of books arrived stuffed with large sheets of paper this spring, I knew I had found the perfect thing to paint on. These sheets are LARGE about 24" x 32" so nothing that works well on the tables unless groups paint on them (which we did at school then hung on the wall.) One of the kids commented "we got to paint on BIG paper just like real artists" You forget they have to use what will fit on a desk or table.
27 kids and thier parents participated in this painting experience. We first hung the papers on the windows and walls using painters tape. Everyone was outfitted with a cover t-shirt, a pencil, a foam brush and a styrofoan pallete rescued from a friend's lunch. (They take all this recycling for granted as we do so much of it!)
Each was instructed to draw a large picture like the murals on the walls in the room they are in. The members of HOTT painted murals on 3 of the walls several years ago for the library. After the drawings were completed all of the kids painted the sheets. What a great variety we got!
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler.
It was a busy and fun filled week for the 20 kids that painted their way from paper to fabric to tile to mirrors and canvas. I really wanted them to be able to use surfaces and paints that they might not get to use otherwise. We did a parrot watercolor and were able to view an array of tropical colored parrots, painted on non-glazed tiles and did our rendition of a French grapevine scene with a cottage, learned about Russian enamels and embellished tin to paint on it, came up with designs to place on large round mirrors and used glossy enamels on them, and finished the week painting a small canvas with a sun and flowers with personality. We were even able to go back and fix little things on our aprons with rubber stamps and paint.
The Arts mini-camp is held at the Wells Branch Community Library and taught by Dianne Koehler.
I think they outdid themselves this time! We were afraid we'd run out of bottles and instead had a few left over. This is not a hard project if you have 11 hands and an imagination to go with them. We cut holes in the bottles so they could be banks but some of the kids got ahead of us and we had to be a little creative to get the hole in.
The bottle is covered in donated fabric with tacky glue to hold it on. A few strategically placed rubber bands hold the neck in place until it dries. As you can see a lot of different animals were turned out from bunnies to lions and more. Lots of the animals required wiskers and a few had to have yarn for hair or manes. All in all it is a project that all ages enjoyed.
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler.
Seemed like a good idea to do something a little different with the kids this week. Everyone paints t-shirts and I had gotten feedback from the kids that they were enjoying their Home Depot aprons. I drew the design on the aprons and set them loose painting theirs with the colors they wanted to use. I really love using the SoSoft paints as they spread easily for everyone and don't have to be heat set. We used the scribbles and a variety of other 3D paints for writting names.
There were a few mishaps that we decided we would clean up by stamping over them later in the week. We just put them out on the grass to dry while we painted our tiles then used them the rest of the week.
This was a pretty intense painting week with 9 projects including lots of drawing too. We used the mural on the walls to give us some ideas for designs and the tour of art at the beginning of the sessions for others.
The Art mini-camps are held at the Wells Branch Community Library taught by Dianne Koehler.
A
good sized group turned out to paint and decorate fun foam visors to keep the sun out of their eyes this summer. We are lucky that Dollar Tree had the visors and Target had great sparkly stars and things so this project got a lot of great stuff to use. I even found some paint specifically for the fun foam that worked very well.
Almost everyone decided to put their names on their visors too, a nice personal touch. As you can see the color selection was wide enough that everyone got what they wanted to wear--even orange!
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler.
I found an old book on steam locomotives so we could learn a little about the theme of summer reading this year at the Wells Branch Community Library. One of the most ornate ones was the choice for painting this week. It was fun learning about some of the old trains and the details that were on them that do not appear on anything today.
The metallic paints were a very popular addition for accenting the locomotives.
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler.
When a shipment of books arrived stuffed with large sheets of paper this spring, I knew I had found the perfect thing to paint on. These sheets are LARGE about 24" x 32" so nothing that works well on the tables unless groups paint on them (which we did at school then hung on the wall.) One of the kids commented "we got to paint on BIG paper just like real artists" You forget they have to use what will fit on a desk or table. 
