Making Crazy birds @WBCL

Making Crazy birds Wells Branch Community Library tonight was so much fun. We used a lot of bits from other projects but they were jus perfect! A leftover easter egg for a body, a large pompom for a head, pipe cleaner legs and a cardboard ring for a neck with bright feathers for wings held on with washi tape. Everyone was able to do it and not too much glue got loose!

Painting and drawing birds at the WB Annex mini-art camp

It was a fantastic first day of art camp! We are using a grid drawing method this year and it is really paying off in helping with shape and proportion on a more difficult theme--birds. We talked about local birds naming the ones that we were familiar with and the ones we had seen. kids are willing to try anything and we did.

We hit on some bird facts: hawks fly 120 mph when diving. The younger kids read a couple of books and created all kinds of owl projects in the morning. the older kids learned quilling and created an owl on an index card. Once they got the hang of it many added branches and other details. Lots of broken sticks for some of them. The final project was a watercolor of the teal winged duck supplied by our local birding group. Not everyone liked my streaky feathers and many smoothed theirs then added water and sky to them. They all got the beautiful teal and blue wing in.

Day 2 was more painting--painted birdhouses and the teal wing water color for the beginners, a hummingbird for the Jr group. The younger group created an edible nest with eggs (way too sweet we decided) and little pompom birds for their birdhouses. The older group  investigated peacocks and the did a pastel drawing on black background of a peacock. They decided it looked far better on black than the one I did with another group on white paper. They also got

to make their dodo birds or a bird of a different sort.

Resource books for the week from WBCL:
 Baby Bird's first nest
 The book of North American owls
 Eagles
 Eyewitness Books: Eagle & birds of prey
 Hawks
 Meet the peacock
 Thunder birds: nature's flying predators
 Duckling days
 Fine feathered friends
 Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!
 If I never forever endeavor
 Feathers and fools
 Fly by night

Photos at: drawing birds 14 Jr day 1  & drawing birds 14 beginners day 1

Painting drawing birds JR day 2  painting drawing birds beg day 2

Drawing and painting winter birds @WBCL

This was a draw along with me lesson (see drawing above) which worked very well last night. I get some fairly young kids in the class and have been doing more draw/paint sessions of late. They love it and they are pretty good at it. The parents do help with the drawings as needed but the kids hold their own. We also had colored reference pictures to consult when we painted the birds. I chose cardinals and jays because they have similar shapes but dramatically different colors. we even did a bit of color mixing and added a few details like sky or branches to them.

All about birds art mini camp day 3

 This final day of camp was a little chaotic. We had to start lots of projects at the same time in order to get them to dry and be able to complete them. We started today by reviewing some of the facts and information about birds and nesting birds in Texas. We talked about the packet we would make for the birds to use in building nests. We also reviewed examples of dozens of gourd birdhouses before they began their projects. The campers selected the colors that they wanted to use to paint their birdhouses. There were a variety of different sizes and shapes of gourds that my friend Shelley gave us for this camp. We were able to utilize the tops of egg cartons in order to not get paint all over our drawings on the table. Every camper did their own take on what they thought would attract birds to their birdhouse.

We did a crushed eggshell base for a hummingbird painting. Each of the students selected a drawing of a hummingbird, cut it out, and pasted it to a piece of foam core board. We then covered the picture with tacky glue and they pressed on eggshells so that they would have a crackled surface. We set this aside to dry then colored them with bright colored markers. This project did not turn out as well as I expected but the campers were happy.
We also covered our surface for the scratch out using either crayons or dark-colored oil pastels. To complete the project they scratched out what looked like twigs for the nest all around the outside and then used a palette knife to scrape out 3 to 5 eggs inside the nest. They then colored the eggs with blue or pink pastel.

At every point the campers wanted to get back and finish painting their birdhouses. The idea of letting them air dry if there was a hair dryer available was not an acceptable option.
The two remaining projects were first to create a nesting materials bag from the mesh vegetable bags that I've been collecting filled with short pieces of yarn and string. Each end was secured with twist ties so it can be refill and attached a pipe cleaner on the end so it could be hung out for the birds.

The final project was to create birdseed reefs or bird food wreaths for the students to hang out in their yards at home. For this we again follow the directions I used to create these in January. I found this on Pinterest and it worked out quite well. This time we used fluted yogurt cups as our container. I had lots of help mixing up the ingredients much like a science project and then the students helped each other fill their cups, pressed the mixture in tightly, and made a hole using a pencil so that it could be hung on a ribbon.
Lastly they removed all of the items from their three ring binder and transfer them to the gray folder that they had decorated during the week. We punched extra holes along the edges so that they could hang the bookmark from Jeanette Johnson and other items like the nest bag and note bird. When we do this again we will definitely include constructing a pocket on both the inside front and back of the folder so that loose items can be more easily secured.

bird camp day 3
Book list for the week:
1. Charming Handmade Clay crafts
2. Creative Stamping in Polymer Clay
3. Draw 50 birds
4. Essential origami
5. Hummingbirds: hovering in nature
6. Making books that fly, fold, wrap, hide, pop up, twist, and turn:
books for 
7. Paper Quilling for the First Time
8. Quilling for Scrapbooks & Cards

1. Backyard birds of Texas: how to identify and attract the top 25 birds
2. The birds of Texas
3. The book of North American owls
4. Hawks
5. Pink!

All about birds mini-art camp day 2

It was another day of day of nonstop drawing and creating. We discussed the various waterfowl in our parking in Texas, view photos of them on the Cornell site, then drew several of the waterfowl. The drawings of the heron, and egrets, and mallards were fantastic. They learned to transfer their drawings onto watercolor paper then did a watercolor painting of their mallards.

We also created songbirds from sheets of sheet music and mounted them on clothespins so they would be "note birds." During our last project of the day students elected several methods of completing their Firebird or Phoenix. Some chose to use watercolor, others opted for colored pencils or oil pastels. We took a brief walk out to the courtyard to see if we could identify any birds in our area then came back in and did a sketch of the ones we found.


click on the link to see more pictures of the day at camp:  bird camp day 2

All about birds Day 1

 What a great fun first day we had. We got to look at pictures that some of the neighbors sent to me herons and egrets and a few hawks. We started our day by creating a cover for the artwork that we will do this week. I had the kids draw what they wanted on the cover then some of them painted it in using texture paste. They will continue to add items to their cover all week. We spent about an hour doing drawings of owls and hawks. The step-by-step technique to do the owl and the hawk resulted in really great drawings. A few of our hawks, including mine, were a little fat. The wings and tails on them though turned out very well.
We then broke into a craft that was new for all of them. We talked a little bit about quilling and what it has been used for then began pieces to quill a card. We used the cut toothpicks as our quilling devices which worked pretty well. We did palm trees in green with a simple trunk then a pink flamingo. They learned how to shape the body, make legs and beaks, and shape a neck to put the whole thing together. Some went on to add suns, stars and other embellishments. It looks so hard and elegant. 
Last project was a multi-layer paper bird. Angel and Kat made samples on this one but the kids didn't need leading on this. They were supposed to make a big bird and they did. They used colored paper scraps, shred, tissue paper, streamers, ribbons and feathers in all kinds of combinations. We even had 5 minutes to clean up and get ready for parents.  For lots of pictueres take a look:  Day 1 picx
For a look at summer schedule go to my website.

Making birdseed hangers @WBCL

 We've made a variety of birdfeeders over the last couple of years but this one is my new favorite. I found the directions on Pinterest ( http://www.hometalk.com/687521/bird-seed-wreath/photo/140450 )and did it like a science experiment with the kids counting off the ingredients as they went into the bowl. We made them up in antique cookie pans and large open cookie cutters. It was easy to make the holes with straws. They were supposed to let them dry over night and put the ribbons in but no one wanted to wait and most did great. A couple had to be patted together again. No hungry birds in our neighborhood this month!

Fun with Dr. Seuss @art mini camp

 Doesn't everyone love Dr. Seuss? It has been fun to work with some of his lesser known stories and create the projects based on these. We started with reading "The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" then made folded hats decorated with our own feathers made from paper shred. The kids really had a good time with the book and getting into character wearing the hats. 




We read "Wish for a Fish: All About Sea Creatures" one of the Seuss learning library books and made our own aquariums. I had planned on using " McElligot's pond" but it is really long and was good to have as a resource instead. The kids drew fish, plants and other sealife then mounted them in a clear blue tub. 

 We continue on through "Oh, can you say din-o-saur" and "the things you can think" creating a decorated frame for a picture drawn by each camper. Our dinosaur project in clay produced a Trex, dino eggs, and a few dinos that even they could not identify. We tried our hands at drawing the features of a maze too to go with
 "I had trouble getting to Solla Sollew". Time was flying trying to fit it all in.

 We were given some corks that looked so much like giraffes and paper for many animals that we created Seuss type animals from the corks and chenille stems. We read " Horton hatches the egg" then painted wooden eggs with metallic tempera and colored the winged baby elephabird for the egg. 

We made nests complete with eggs and mama birds after reading "Fine feathered friends: All about birds" another Learning library selection.  The nests were paper shred on a cardstock base. The birds were more complicated with 2 fuzzy balls, feathers, a beak and wiggle eyes. We totally did not do tails on our birds!

Making birdfeeders for National Bird day @WBCL

In the past we have made bird feeders from pine cones but they are in short supply and do not require any creativity or crafting skills to create. The birds do like them though. I found this pattern on the internet at Family Fun  and decided to try it instead, especially since it uses recyclable materials.  We altered it a bit to use up some sticky backed fun foam instead of crafts sticks and decorated with leftover stickers. Our handle is a chenille stem left from the holidays. Everyone got a baggie of seeds to add when they got home. Thanks to to librarian Jeanette Larson for her page of links and coloring pages. http://www.jeanettelarson.com/Resources.htm I especially appreciated the link to the National Geographic site for bird identification: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/backyard-bird-identifier/

Peacocks, pelicans, and fantasy birds @ fins & feathers art camp day 3

The title says it all. We did birds today. I got bottle holders from OTC and turned everyone loose with paints and glitter to complete them. The campers were instructed to use very little water so that the colors would not run on the canvas bags. They did a great job on these. Now if I could just remember to get their names on the projects first.

Our second project I found on the internet and will definately do a couple more times with variations. We made finger print peacocks. Kat created the bodies and cut them before class. the campers created the peacock "eyes" by finger painting 3 metallic colors of paint onto paper and cutting them out. They assembled a fan of feathers between the body and a crafts stick, added the "eyes" to the feathers then put on wiggle eyes and beaks. We looked at a number of peacock paintings and pictures at the beginning of the day to prepare. 

Our last project was to create a fantasy bird using their imagination and the supplies on the tables. We had styrofoam eggs and balls, chenille stems, pom poms, wiggle eyes, and feathers of various sizes and colors. The project was placed on the end of a pencil and again the variety in the end was great.