Much more colorful than nature is how our leaf painting project evolved. We used wooden leaf shapes to create our leaves then a pallete of colors to bring on the fall flavor. We tried to keep the leaves seperated a bit so the colors would not run but not everyone is bothered by colors running together. I am not sure what trees our leaves might come from but they are far more colorful than we are seeing locally.
Initially I planned to use fruit to make prints in this session. But on rethinking the cost and waste, and the nice supply I had of foam stamps change was in order. Each table was set up with egg carton with 5 colors of tempera paint and a generous handful of small and medium stamps, paint brushes and wet rags.
We used heavy paper and off they went. We painted the stamps using a small brush as it make the stamping with paint neater, especially for younger kids. The quiet in the room as everyone concentrated on the work was notable. Great results too.
This project is always a hit as we give kids much larger surfaces than they ususally get to have and tell them to use any of the brushes and tools they have been introduced to on the subject they pick. We have a large selection of brushes compliments of my painting friends and left-overs from other classes. We also had the pouncers, corks and palette knives to use in addition to forks (to make wavy lines.) Again a number of the painings were inspired by the slide show earlier in the day. Hopefully some of these will turn up in their art show.
We capped off the week with one of my favorite projects--food art--and apparently it was a hit with the kids and the staff as it was hard to get them out of the kitchen. There were no left-over rainbow cupcakes either! To do this project all you need is a box of white cake mix, food coloring, and several small bowls. Once mixed we divided the batter into 6 bowls, colored it with the coloring--mixing the orange and purple--and spooned it into the baking cups. After it is baked just frost and add a painted rainbow cookie before eating it.
Thought I'd include a picture of the great staff we had this week to pull this program off. It is always ideal to have lots of help to do the hands-on projects as the kids can get a bit freer in their artwork. Also great when everyone is enjoying being at camp!
Much more colorful than nature is how our leaf painting project evolved. We used wooden leaf shapes to create our leaves then a pallete of colors to bring on the fall flavor. We tried to keep the leaves seperated a bit so the colors would not run but not everyone is bothered by colors running together. I am not sure what trees our leaves might come from but they are far more colorful than we are seeing locally.
Initially I planned to use fruit to make prints in this session. But on rethinking the cost and waste, and the nice supply I had of foam stamps change was in order. Each table was set up with egg carton with 5 colors of tempera paint and a generous handful of small and medium stamps, paint brushes and wet rags. 
This project is always a hit as we give kids much larger surfaces than they ususally get to have and tell them to use any of the brushes and tools they have been introduced to on the subject they pick. We have a large selection of brushes compliments of my painting friends and left-overs from other classes. We also had the pouncers, corks and palette knives to use in addition to forks (to make wavy lines.) Again a number of the painings were inspired by the slide show earlier in the day. Hopefully some of these will turn up in their art show.
