Drawing dragons @WBCL

I was give some heavy Crayola paper with fluorescent markers by a neighbor earlier this year and thought we would use them on this project. Perfect! I had all the kids draw along with me to create their dragon on one side of the paper. Great drawings by all from the wings to nose to tail. Then we colored them in using the markers. The markers develop over time so they are not too bright or glowing in the first few minutes but when they get going -- wow--the design just shines.

Dragons and mythical creatures art mini-camp @WB Annex 2

Finishing off the week with more project and as one mom put it "more magic." When we attempted wire art earlier this summer most kids had a hard time with it but this time we were in the grove.
We did a fairy or elf first using chenille stems, pony beads, a clay bead I made, and wire ribbon for wings and clothes. The guys wanted swords so created them from wood sticks and aluminum tape. Several of the elves were totally dressed in aluminum tape armor by the time they were completed. I saw sword fighting going on and then the creations got to climb aboard the dragons we made next.

Following along with a complex wire project is always a challenge but everyone got a dragon created in the end with wings and many with fire spitting out the front. I found very large chenille stems that were more curly at Oriental trading for this one and used some glittery wire mesh for the wings. Of course the eyes and some of the pompoms just needed hot glue. The kids are in love with it once they use it. The idea was to make them small enough to fit into the eggs but most of them sat on the eggs instead.

We talked a bit about the types of dragons and how Chinese dragons are different from the European ones. We created the dragons from a paper bag and strips of colored card stock joined with brads. They are decorated with all kinds of paper from shred to tissue paper, paper plate pieces to construction paper. some had long tails with streamers on them. We were even able to add bells to them and a chenille stem or two. Our dance was very short as time just ran out but lots of fun anyway. 

More pictures are posted at FB:
Dragons mini-camp day 1
Dragons mini-camp day 2
Dragons mini-camp day 3

Dragons and mythical creature art mini-camp @WB Annex

Dragons was a popular camp session a couple of years ago so we decided to expand it and repeat it this summer. We started the week making a clipboard project from a library book, Funky Junk and went from one medium to another getting dragons, fairies, unicorns, and more created.  

We used small lemonade drink bottles as the base for our paper mache project. The mache was created from envelopes and school glue but was too wet so it got to spend a day in the oven at 225 degrees. It dried out well but the bottles got kind of puffy on the bottoms so to paint them we had to nestle them onto foam sheets. The kids made everything from a penguin to creatures from movies complete with swords.

I was given some red fabric that seemed just the thing to make dragon banners at camp. the kids did not have to draw their own dragons but they picked their colors and techniques to paint them. At the end they could use squeeze paints to outline and highlight some of the areas.

Fimo or sculpy clay is really colorful but was hard for us to work with in the past. I cut lots of dowels into rollers and once we got the clay soft the creations began. They not only made unicorns and dragons but an assortment of items for the fairy gardens the next day.

Using gourds supplied by a friend and lots of "stuff" each camper created a fairy or dragon garden on a base of styrofoam.  We had a number of grassy items from model RR and floral kits, stones, tiles, silk flowers, silver rings, small pieces of wood for signs, our clay mushrooms and pieces, little birds and lots more that I was able to accumulate.

Many more pictures are posted online on FB:
Dragons art camp day 1
Dragons art camp day 2
Dragons art camp day 3

Making dragon masks @ art camp day 3

We started the day making Draco the dragon boats, a Viking boat from sparkly felt and iridescent paper twist. They had to draw their boat, cut it out and mount it on a wooden oval. They got to pick if they made a pin or a magnet. We had looked at some of the Viking longboats in the museum in Oslo, Norway earlier in the week.  

This turned out to be even more fun that we planned as the kids creativity and playfulness kicked in. Hardest part of the whole project was folding the edge of the bag. I made some templates for eyes and the mustaches but the group was free to do their bags as they wanted. We viewed a number of Chinese dragons and several New Year's dragon dances at the beginning of the day to give them an idea of what is used in traditional settings. We didn't have a lot of time to practice before the dragon dance at the end of the day but they found plenty of time to try the masks on and dance around with them anyway.

We started with a plain paper grocery bag, had a selection of colored paper and construction paper, tissue streamers, dividers from some kind of grocery item to use for horns, and a few chenille stems. Toward the end of this slide show is the video showing one of the bags in motion.

Painted dragon T's and pencil toppers @ art camp

This might have been a stretch but it sure turned out great. I got black t-shirts and made a dragon stencil to start the shirts. I used so-soft paint and stamped the body onto everyone's shirt so they would have a big reptilian dragon to start painting. We used a combination of so-soft fabric paints and metallic paints to create the shirts. They were able to use finger pouncers to add dimension and to block in the wings. We even had a few 2 headed dragons and a request for a 7 headed one. (NOT)
We double dipped the stories today with Ms. Hall doing 3 at the beginning of the day and Councellor Keighla doing a couple at the end before their drawing time.
I found a cute dragon on the internet to use--a pencil topper that worked out very well. We sure had fun making them. I'll want to use all my special pencils from now on

Dragon week @ art mini-camp starts with origami, clay sculpting

We started the day looking at a bit of history about dragons and looked at a Viking boat in an Oslo museum. We also talked a bit about the difference between Chinese dragons and medieval ones. Then on to the projects. 


First the origami dragon then one molded in sculpy clay.
It was a complex design for some, easy for others but everyone folded a dragon in the end with a bit of help. The excited faces as the wings and head appeared and squeals of delight replaced the "I can't make it do that" and "it's too hard" comments. We are lucky to have a talented teen to lead the origami part of the camp and keep everyone folding.

To make the sculpy clay dragons we started with aluminum foil to make the base. This gives it a lot less weight to bake and lets the campers focus on the features of the dragon. I got several sparkly blocks which was good and bad. They look wonderful but are very much stiffer. Some of the campers refused to knead the clay when it was stiff and just stuck on the firmer blockier pieces. Not bad effect sometimes but it did not stick as well. There were all kinds of designs created from super cute to a realistic serpent. We  used glass beads for eyes so we would not melt them during the baking. Some of the dragons will get a bit of paint on Thursday when the campers paint their T-shirts.

Making paper dragons to celebrate Chinese New Year

Brrrrr! it was cold Wednesday night but a few families still turned out for a really fun project. These paper dragons were as fierce as any I've seen with fire coming out of their snouts and a row of very sharp looking teeth. 


We used a 6" paper plate, paper towel tube and a white sandwich bag as the base, added shredded paper from the diamond cutter and tissue paper cut into strips for the embellishments.

The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check the library website for detail