Create Your Own Christmas Candle Holder

This is a fun project that can be enjoyed by all ages. These festive candle holders can be used as decorations in your own home or can be given as homemade gifts.

Supplied Needed:

Glass paint
Glass candleholder
Paintbrush
Palette
Cotton balls
Rubbing Alcohol

Protect your work space with newspaper. Use the cotton balls to wipe the candleholder with rubbing alcohol. Once you have wiped the candleholder, don’t touch the area you intent to paint.

Find an image to paint. You could go online and print something out, use a stamp (like I did), take a picture from a magazine, or draw your own picture. Tape the picture to the inside of the glass.

Now trace the image onto your glass with the paint.
Younger kids will enjoy experimenting freeform on the candle holder. Even just painting dots of red, green, and white is fun.

When you’ve finished, have an adult light a tea light and drop it into the candle holder for you. I recommend a Christmas-y scented candle like cinnamon.


Return to main page.

Create Your Own Matisse Collage

Yesterday you read about Henri Matisse who created large, bold collages late in his life. Today, make your own collage in the style of Matisse.

Supplies Needed:

Acrylic Craft Paints
Poster board
Thick/textured sketch paper
White glue
Plastic Cups
Paintbrush
Scissors

Look around your house or outside and choose a subject. For example, a pine tree. Choose what colors you’d like to use in your collage. Remember, the colors you choose don’t have to be the natural colors of your subject. You might choose to create a pine tree in warm tones: red, orange, yellow, magenta. Or you might use all the colors of the rainbow to create orange slices. You can even use one color for the whole collage like the one by Matisse shown above, Blue Nude. Go crazy. Be creative. This is what art is all about.

When you’ve chosen your colors, paint one sheet of sketch paper in each color. If you’re using all one color, you’ll need to paint a few sheets to have enough material to make your collage.

Let the paint dry.

Cut your sheets of painted paper into shapes. If I were making a pine tree I might use triangles as branches or long rectangles placed at angle and overlapping in the center. Lay your shapes in the desired pattern on the poster board.

Mix some glue with a little water in your plastic cup. Use a paintbrush to apply the glue to the back of each shape and attach your pattern to the poster board. Paint a layer of glue over the top of the collage as well. This will seal the shapes and give the whole collage a smooth finish.

Return to main page.

My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

45336 / 50000 words. 91% done!

I’m struggling to write those last few thousand words.

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse, born in 1869, began his working life doing administrative tasks for a court. As a gift, his mother gave him his first art supplies and he fell in love with painting.

He studied art in Paris where he painted mostly landscapes and still lifes. He was successful at this and the state even bought five of his paintings. In 1898, he discovered impressionism. A friend and fellow painter, John Peter Russell introduced him to the work of the impressionists including van Gogh who was still unknown and Gauguin. Matisse’s style changed completely following this discovery and color took center-stage in his paintings.

This love of color evolved into Fauvism, in which natural scenes are portrayed in unnatural, usually extremely bright, colors.

By the end of his life Matisse was thoroughly interested in patterns and from this interest came his collages. Made from boldly hand-painted paper cut into shapes, Matisse’s collages were usually large works of simplicity. He create a book, Jazz, illustrated with these collages.

Shown below are two paintings by Matisse, Two Figures Reclining in a Landscape and The Red Madrass Headress. Notice the difference in style and color use.

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Matisse Collage

Return to main page.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

41902 / 50000 words. 84% done!
Yes: still behind but...
I FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!!!!

Create Your Own Sand Painting

To make your own sand painting, you will first need to make some colored sand.

Materials Needed:

Sand
Food Coloring
Plastic Containers
Spoon
Paper Towels


Pour some sand into each plastic container. Use a different container for each color. Pour just enough water into each container to cover the sand. Then add food coloring and stir each mixture until you have all the colors you want. Let the sand sit for at least an hour to absorb the color. The longer it sits the brighter the colors will be.

When you’re happy with the colors of the sand, spoon it onto paper towels to dry. Remember to keep the colors separate. Clean and dry your containers so that when the sand has dried you can return each color to its own container.

_______


Follow the instructions to make your own colored sand or buy sand that has already been colored. It is available at most craft stores. Now you’re ready to make a sand painting.

Materials Needed:

Colored Sand
Thick Paper like Construction Paper
Elmer’s Glue
Water
Plastic Container
Paintbrush
Pencil


Gather your materials. Decide what you’d like to paint and use a pencil to draw it onto your paper. You can use any color paper because the sand will cover it.

Pour some glue into an empty plastic container. Mix in a little water to make the glue easier to paint with.

Choose your first color. Paint glue into the sections of your masterpiece that you would like to be that color. Try to paint only a thin layer of glue. Before the glue dries, sprinkle colored sand onto it. Tap off any sand that doesn’t stick and pour it back into its container.

Continue to fill in your painting with sections of color until it is completed. Let the painting dry for a few hours.

Cover the colored sand and save it for another project or create another sand painting right away.

Return to main page.

Native American Sand Painting

Some Native American tribes in the northwest, particularly the Navajos, use sand painting in healing ceremonies. Because the Navajos believe that sickness is caused by offending a god, the ceremony is meant to restore the patient to that god’s good will. The tribe’s medicine man uses colored sand to make pictures on the ground of the hogan (the ceremonial home), or on animal skins. He uses his hands to scatter the sand into special shapes and patterns that are believed to have healing powers.

The paintings are not made to last and are not stuck in place in any way. In fact, we have very few photographs of sand paintings that were actually made during ceremonies. Paintings have been made for the public to see and take pictures of but they are not exactly the same as those made during healing ceremonies.

The ceremony can last for nine days and nine nights if the patient needs it but is can also be performed in two nights or five nights. First, the sickness must be taken from the patient’s body by herbs or sweat baths. Then the gods must be summoned, through sand paintings, so that the patient can make up for his offense.

The medicine man usually chants while his assistants create the sand painting. The painting can range from only a few feet square to twenty feet square and its main colors are blue, white, black, and yellow. When the sand painting is finished, the ill person sits on it so the gods can enter his body and restore harmony. You can see how the sand painting wouldn’t last very long. After the sand painting absorbs the illness from the patient it is swept out of the ceremonial home.

You can look at some sand paintings by clicking here. Just click on any of the artists’ names in the list. Notice that all the sand paintings on the website are for sale which means that they were not created for healing ceremonies. They were also stuck down, not laid loose on the ground to be swept away later.

Check back tomorrow for a sand painting project!

Return to main page.