Pairing Paintings with Poems

It certainly has been awhile! I’m student teaching this semester (and loving every minute of it) so things have been busy around here. I have had some time the last few days, though, because we got hit by a ton of snow and schools have been closed now for over a week! I’m sure the kids are loving it, but I’m ready to get back.

I spent some time last week working on a lesson for our poetry unit and I thought some of you might be interested in what I put together. Some time ago I read an article by Judith Jester in which she talked about how we “read” paintings in the same way we read literature. I wanted to use this idea so I went on a hunt for four poems that I could match to four paintings. This was a lot more difficult than you’d think! Below is what I found.

I matched Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Afternoon on a Hill” with Claude Monet’s Poppies at Arguenteuil (shown above).

Deborah Chandra’s poem “Bubbles” matched Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin’s Boy Blowing Bubbles.

Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) by Henri Rousseau seemed a great illustration of “Tiger Dance” by Carconti Etva.

And “Wind Pictures” by Mary O’Neill (scroll toward the bottom of the page to find the poem) paired well with N.C. Wyeth’s The Giant.

All of the poems except Tiger Dance can be found in The 20^th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury selected by Jack Prelutsky. It’s really a great book. It has so many wonderful poems, all illustrated superbly by Meilo So.

My thought is to have the students read each poem and look at each painting and decide which painting to pair with which picture. Then they’ll write about how they made the pairings.

I’m excited about this lesson. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Mount Rushmore

I mentioned on Tuesday that I did a bit of travelling this summer. In August and September I went on an amazing, 17-day road trip across the country and one of the things I saw was Mount Rushmore. After a visit to the sculptor’s studio, I knew I would have to tell you all about it.
Mount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills in South Dakota:
About 2 million people visit each year and I can understand why. The massive faces of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln have been carved into the mountainside in stunning detail that’s impossible to portray in a photograph. It’s tough to believe that the monument was meant to be much larger.

In the mid-1920s, the United States Congress decided to build the monument at Mount Rushmore in order to increase tourism in South Dakota. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who I’ll tell you more about next week, decided to take on the project.

Because Mount Rushmore was to be so large, Borglum couldn’t sculpt the entire mountain by himself. Instead, Borglum designed the monument and managed the men who actually carved the sculpture. It was dangerous work. As they carved, the men hung from the side of the mountain in swings like the one shown below!
It wasn’t easy to carve the faces into the solid granite mountain. The men had to blast away a lot of the rock using dynamite before they could begin to carve. They used a jackhammer, like the one below, to make holes for the dynamite.

Below is a man using a jackhammer to create holes in the mountain.

Dynamite was also used to erase mistakes from the mountain. Borglum originally settled on a design for the mountain that put Thomas Jefferson to the left of George Washington. When he discovered that the rock on that side of George Washington wasn’t strong enough to support the sculpture, the men blasted Jefferson off the mountain and began again on the other side of Washington.

Once the basic shapes of the faces had been created with dynamite, the men were able to use chisels and mallets to carve the finer details. Finally, they used a tool like the one below to smooth out the granite. The metal piece slips into the handle and then works like a small jackhammer to chip away tiny pieces of rock.
This process took 14 years; carving began in October 1927 and ended in October 1941.

Imagine how long it would have taken to carve the entire monument that Borglum designed:
In March 1941, Borglum died and his son took over the project. The United States became involved in World War II and Congress decided that we could not spend any more money on Mount Rushmore. It declared the mountain a finished piece of art.

And if this wasn't enough, check out this Lego Mount Rushmore. I did not see the Lego version, sadly.

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Create Your Own Thumbprint Animal

It’s that time of year again! I don’t know about you, but I am so happy to be back in school. I disappeared for awhile this summer in order to do some travelling and in the next few weeks you’ll get to see and read about some of the things I’ve been doing. Hopefully you haven’t forgotten about my little website.

I have decided, however, that I will not be posting every day. It has been a long time since I was able to stick to a daily posting schedule and I don’t want to burn out again. You can expect art posts two or three times a week. If you want more (and why wouldn’t you?), check out any of the great blogs listed in the side bar.

And now, on to the art project: thumbprint animals.
I’m sure many of you have seen this project done elsewhere, but I love it. It’s quick and simple, and each child’s art piece is unique and creative. I like it as a beginning of the year project, especially if you’re studying fingerprints and fingerprinting. In Maryland, fingerprinting is often the first science unit that third graders complete, so hopefully this post is timely.

Supplied Needed:

Ink pads
Markers
Cardstock or watercolor paper cut into two-inch squares
Choose an ink color. This will be the body of your thumbprint animal. Press your thumb into the ink pad and then onto the center of your cardstock square. You should push your thumb straight down and then lift it straight up so your thumbprint doesn’t smear.
Decide what animal you’d like to create. I made a butterfly, a frog, a spider, and a rabbit. You might choose to make a chick, a fly, or an animal from your own imagination. Draw the face and details with a fine-tipped marker.
Sign your name at the bottom of your square. Frame and enjoy!

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Look! Look!

Look what just came in the mail!

I know what you're thinking: "Who did the art on that mug and where I can I get one???" It's one of Ms. Julie's tangles printed on a mug. Isn't she great? And yes, you can enjoy hot chocolate or tea or coffee or ice cream (Mm. Ice cream would be delicious out of a tangle mug.) or anything else you can put in a mug out of your very own tangle mug. Visit Ms. Julie's gallery at Zazzle to order your own. And don't forget to visit her awesome blog, too!

This one was a prize for helping title one of Julie's other fabulous pieces of art. Thanks, Julie!

Mom's Chocolate Painting Inspired by Ms. Julie

My mom has become so annoyed by my lack of posts that she went ahead and created her own. I guess you guys missed me.

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I have been looking at your chocolate painting post for so long now that I decided I needed to give it a try. First I needed to pick something to copy and I was inspired by “Parrot Paradise” on Ms. Julie’s Place – She however is much better at creating art than I am. Next I printed out her picture at a size that will fit the cheesecake it will grace. I then taped the picture to the back of a piece of parchment paper, traced a circle the size of the cake top and set it into a cookie sheet




I next collected all the different colored chocolate melts that I had and decided which colors to use as I did not have any purple. I have found from past experience that you really can’t make different colors with these melts. They are not pure colors so you mostly end up with different browns.



I then started filling in the various sections letting it cool and harden between colors. I used some drip painting to represent the leaves as it is quite difficult to paint with too much detail (artistic license?). A white chocolate background would look better with this picture so I painted a border around the edge with the intention of pouring the rest of the chocolate to hold it all together.

Then I put the picture in the refrigerator to harden. I have now discovered that white chocolate doesn’t melt thinly enough to pour so I had to spread it with a knife which had the unfortunate effect of smearing some of the painting. And there for next time I will use a true chocolate background.

Now I must go make the cheesecake!

To Peter: My chocolate art won’t last long either. But I did make it 24 hours ahead of the cheesecake, so it should last at least that long.

David Wiesner

Remember all the things that a picture book has to be to win a Caldecott Medal or Caldecott Honor? When I read that list, I think of David Wiesner. And I’m not the only one. He is only the second person ever to win three Caldecott Medals. Two more of his books are Caldecott Honor Books. This is extremely impressive but what really matters is how the books make you feel. Do you like his books?

I do!

I especially love the books that do not use words at all to tell the story, like the three I’ll tell you about today.

David Wiesner’s Caldecott Honor Book, Sector 7 is amazing. Using only pictures, Wiesner tells the story of boy who makes friends with a cloud while on a class trip. The cloud takes him to Sector 7 where all the clouds for the eastern coast of the U.S. are formed and sent into the world. There, the boy and the cloud cause some mischief that turns the sky into a giant, under-the-sea-themed art exhibit.

Tuesday, winner of a Caldecott Medal, uses words only to tell us that the story takes place through the night on a Tuesday. Just as you would expect from David Wiesner, the rest of the story is told with pictures. On this particular Tuesday, a collection of frogs rise out of the water and ride their lily pads like magic carpets through the town. I especially love when the frogs get caught up in the drying laundry.

And finally: Flotsam, another Caldecott Medal winner. In this story, again without text, an interesting piece of flotsam washes up on a beach and a boy discovers it. The underwater camera is ancient and filled with unbelievable pictures of sea life. In one picture, a family of octopi relax in their living room while fish swim between the pieces of furniture. In another picture, colonies live in seashells on the backs of turtles. But the best part of the story is the history of the camera. Generations of children have passed the secrets of the sea from one to the next by putting a new roll of film in the camera, taking a picture of themselves, and tossing the camera back into the ocean.

I recommend that you check out Houghton Mifflin’s webpage about David Wiesner if you’re interested in knowing more about this incredibly talented artist.

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Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns was born in 1930 in Augusta, Georgia. He is still living and creating art so I will not say too much about him, but tomorrow I plan to post a project inspired by his art. You should certainly know a little something about him. Be sure to check out the links to his artwork so you’ll have something to inspire you when you create your own masterpiece.

Johns didn’t take any formal art lessons as a child but he knew he wanted to be an artist. In 1949 he moved to New York City to study at the Parsons School of Design. There were a lot of artists working in the city at that time and Johns made friends with some of them. He was drafted into the army soon after arriving in New York City, though.

When he returned from war, Johns began to experiment with different styles. At the time, Abstract Expressionism (the movement that included Jackson Pollock) was the popular artistic style. For the Abstract Expressionists, art was all about showing emotion. Johns work is the opposite. This may be one reason his art became as popular as it did.

Johns painted objects that everyone could recognize, like flags, numbers (and more numbers), targets, and maps. The paintings don’t show Johns’ opinions. In fact, the artwork may not have any particular meaning at all. His paintings show us things that we have seen hundreds of times and often just ignore. But we don’t ignore Johns’ paintings. Instead, we study them and find new meaning in the objects he shows us.
Johns has created more than just paintings. He has also made prints of his artwork and he has created sculptures out of found objects.

Tomorrow, create your own Jasper Johns map painting.

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Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak was born in New York in 1928. He decided to become an illustrator after watching Disney’s Fantasia when he was twelve years old. I can understand that. It is a pretty inspiring movie.

Before he began writing his own books, he made a name for himself by illustrating children’s books written by others. You may have read some of the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik. Sendak illustrated those books!

He then began writing and illustrating his own books. There were (and are) people who didn’t think his illustrations were appropriate for children and some of his books have been banned or challenged.

Maurice Sendak has also helped design sets for major ballets and operas.

He won several awards, including the Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are.

Which brings us today’s first book review. I hope you have all read Where the Wild Things Are, but if you haven’t, there’s still time! Where the Wild Things Are was published in 1963 but hasn’t lost any of its appeal in the 45 years since. In this tale, Max, dressed in a wolf suit, makes so much trouble that he is sent to bed without supper. But a magical thing happens when his room becomes a forest with an ocean rolling by. Max hops in his private boat and sails away to where the wild things are. He is made the king of the wild things and he has a fantastic time making trouble with the other wild things. Soon, though, he misses his real home.

Next up, Chicken Soup with Rice. This is perhaps the best children’s book for learning the months of the year. Each month gets its own rhyming poem about chicken soup with rice and its own illustration, colored in yellows, blues, grays, and greens. Sounds like a boring book, you say? Not so! During the winter, soup is eaten to celebrate a snowman’s birthday. In the spring, soup helps cure roses that have begun to droop. Who could write twelve fun and whimsical poems about chicken soup with rice but Maurice Sendak?

Sendak has also illustrated several simple nursery rhymes, like We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, and Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water. His illustrations bring new meaning to these short stories. In the Hector Protector nursery rhyme, all we know about Hector Protector is that he is dressed all in green and when he goes to the queen she doesn’t like him so she sends him home. Sendak shows us that Hector Protector doesn’t want to be dressed in green. He also doesn’t want to go see the queen so he throws the cake he is supposed to take to her in the dirt, hops on the back of a lion, and delivers a snake instead. No wonder the queen sends him home!

And finally, Maurice Sendak recently published a pop-up book called Mommy? which he wrote and illustrated with Arthur Yorinks and Matthew Reinhart. Reinhart is one of the greatest pop-up artists out there and this book is a masterwork. In this fun story, a toddler wanders into a haunted house in search of his mother. He asks the creatures, Frankenstein, an Egyptian mummy, and others, if they are his mommy. When they try to scare him, he pulls pranks on them. The toddler pulls the pins out of Frankenstein’s neck, for instance. This book is so much fun. Kids could certainly destroy this pop-up with over-use but it is well put together. I highly recommend it.

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Randolph Caldecott and the Caldecott Medal

In the upcoming weeks I will be posting about several winners of the Caldecott Medal, as well as a few runners-up, also known as Caldecott Honor books. In many libraries you’ll see Caldecott Medal winners displayed along the tops of the shelves or in their own table displays. They each carry a medal on their covers. But what exactly does it mean to be a Caldecott Medal winner or Caldecott Honor book? Who decides which books should receive the award? And how did this all start, anyway?
Well, it all started with an illustrator named Randolph Caldecott. Throughout his life, he created artwork for magazines. He illustrated novels and drew cartoons. He sculpted and painted. He even illustrated his letters, drawing pictures around the edges of the pages.

In 1887, Caldecott was asked to illustrate two children’s books which were to be published for Christmas. The books were huge hits. Caldecott illustrated two picture books each year for Christmas for the next eight years (until his death). He wrote some of these books himself, but he always added something with his illustrations. The pictures in Caldecott’s books help to tell some of the story that the words do not. Below is one of his illustrations. It is from The Diverting History of John Gilpin. It should remind you of the picture on the Caldecott Medal pictured above.
In 1938, the Association for Library Service to Children awarded the first Caldecott Medal. The award was named in honor of Randolph Caldecott and the winner had to contribute to children’s literature the way Caldecott had. The illustrations had to be original artwork and they had to help tell the story.

Recently, there have been winners of the Caldecott Medal that do not include words at all. David Wiesner, who I’ll post about soon, has won three Caldecott Medals and two Caldecott Honors. He tells his stories all in pictures. He has definitely continued Randolph Caldecott’s tradition!

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Create Your Own Lois Ehlert Bird

Yesterday you read about some of Lois Ehlert’s picture books. Today, make your own illustration in the style of Lois Ehlert. This project came out so well that I couldn’t wait until Friday to share it with you. So this will be a full week all about illustrators!
Supplies Needed:

Construction Paper/ Textured Paper
Cardboard
White Glue
Glue Stick
Scissors
Pencil
Hole Punch (optional)
Paint
I’m going to walk you through the steps to create this bird, but keep in mind that you can make any animal like this. If you have been studying butterflies for example, you might want to make a butterfly.

Cover your workspace and gather your supplies.

Begin by cutting out the shapes for your bird. Look at the shapes shown below and try and draw, then cut out, similar shapes. I cut little triangles out of the tops of the wings to show the separate feathers. Lois Ehlert folds her wings like accordions instead. You choose which you’d rather. Don’t forget to make the eyes. I used a hole punch to create the black part of the eye but you can use scissors to make the eye if you want.
Next, prepare the cardboard. This will become your tree. Peel the back off of the cardboard so you’re left will ridges. Squeeze some brown paint onto a palette or plastic lid. Cut another small strip of cardboard and dip the edge in the paint. Dab off some of the paint and then stamp the edge onto the large piece of cardboard several times. You’re just trying to make the cardboard look more like a tree. Work until you’re happy with the look of your tree, then set it aside to dry. It will dry quickly.

If you chose to show the separate feathers with cuts instead of folds, you’ll want to add some paint to your wings and tail, too. Squeeze some black paint onto your palette. Cut a new strip of cardboard, dip it into the black paint, and pull it across the wing. You’ll want lines that begin at the bottom of each triangle you cut. Then fill in the rest until you are pleased with the look. Do the same to the tail. Let everything dry.

Now, cut some simple leaves from green construction paper. You will need about ten leaves. Cut a third strip of cardboard and use it to paint green lines on your leaves.

Tear some short green strips for grass.

Your bird should be pretty much dry by now. Use your glue stick to glue it together.
Finally, cut off a strip of your painted cardboard to use as branches.

You have now prepared everything you need to make your illustration. Begin arranging your pieces on a sheet of colored paper. I chose to use blue for the sky.

Glue down your tree first. Use white glue anytime you work with cardboard. It needs a stronger hold than a glue stick gives. Cut off any cardboard that hangs over the edges of the paper.
Next, glue down the leaves and grass. Use white glue when gluing to cardboard (because of the ridges) and a glue stick when gluing to the background page.

Finally, glue your bird to the tree.
Remember to sign your name somewhere on your masterpiece!

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Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert is the author and illustrator of many lovely books for young children. You may remember reading about Leaf Man last fall. Perhaps you even made your own Leaf Man. In that book, Ehlert created the illustrations using different types of fall leaves. In her other books, she uses materials such as textured paper, cardboard, and cotton fluff.

What I really love about Ehlert’s picture books is that they are related to subjects that kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders learn about in school. At this age, you are learning about the changing leaves, weather, animals, and the life cycle of butterflies. Ehlert has written books on all of these subjects and more.

Waiting for Wings is the story of a group of caterpillars who disappear into chrysalises and emerge as beautiful butterflies. Ehlert’s simple, rhyming story walks you through the life cycle of the butterfly. Her cut paper illustrations feature colorful flowers and several types of butterflies. At the end of the book there is a guide to the types of flowers and the types of butterflies shown throughout the book.

Pie in the Sky is one of my favorites because it features so many different types of birds. Ehlert’s birds are gorgeous and tomorrow I’ll show you how to make your own. Pie in the Sky is the story of a pie tree. Have you ever seen pies growing on a tree? No? Neither had the speaker in this story. But the child soon finds that the tree grows a cherry feast for all the birds, a raccoon, and eventually for the family. And you’ll learn to make a cherry pie right along with the child in the story.

In honor of the snow day that many of us on the east coast are enjoying, check out Snowballs. The snow people and snow dog in this story are anything but ordinary.

Ehlert has written many more books worth reading. These are just a few of my favorites.

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Great Children's Book Illustrators

There are many great children's book illustrators. Sometimes the artwork in picture books blows me away. So it's about time I started posting about some of this great art.

You've already read about Eric Carle and maybe created your own painted tissue paper Valentines. Awhile back, I reviewed a book called The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, which you may remember. But that's it. Three posts out of 350 were about children's book illustrators...

So in the coming weeks, beginning tomorrow, I will post Fantastic Fiction Friday on Thursday. On Friday, you'll find a project related to that week's illustrator.

I'm so excited about this.

If you've been looking for projects that relate to a specific book or illustrator, leave me a comment. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to post a project for you.

Up first: Graeme Base.

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Aboriginal Art, Part III- Desert Art

Aboriginal artists living in the desert have many of the same beliefs as those living in Arnhem Land and the Kimberley region. If you need to, please refresh your memory on what those beliefs are.

In the 1950s, the Aborigines from several desert areas were moved to Papunya in the center of Australia. The Aborigines were forced to move because the Australian government needed their land to graze cattle on. The government also wanted to mine on the Aborigines’ land. The Aborigines were not happy about the move.

Most Aborigines living in the desert had lost interest in creating art. But in 1971, a teacher encouraged them to paint murals. He brought art supplies to the Aborigines, and children and adults alike began to love creating art. This love of art spread and now many desert artists earn their livings painting.

In Aboriginal desert art, you’ll see a lot of circles. These circles are usually meant to show water holes. Water, as you can imagine, is very important in the desert. Sometimes the circles are holes that have been dug by animals.

Sometimes desert artists paint animals, but you will notice far more animal tracks than actual animals in their art work.

Desert art includes a lot of concentric shapes. This means that the artist paints a shape, then outlines it in another color, then another color, then another color. Usually, these shapes are made up of many tiny dots. You’ve seen dots in Aboriginal art from Arnhem Land and Kimberley, but the desert artists often cover nearly their entire pieces with dots. To me, the dots look like grains of sand. What do you think?

Desert artists are also known for painting on objects such as boomerangs, water carriers, rocks, and even bodies.

Enjoy this gallery and this gallery of Aboriginal art from the desert. If you click on a painting, you can read its story.

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Aboriginal Art, Part II- The Kimberley Region

In the Kimberley area, Aborigines usually paint on canvas or board. Sometimes they paint on bark like the Aboriginal artists in Arnhem Land that you read about on Tuesday.

Artists in the Kimberley area use natural colors made from natural materials, but they also use manufactured acrylic paints. This means that they can use a wide variety of colors in their paintings.

The Kimberley artists believe many of the same things that artists in Arnhem Land believe. You’ll see a lot of animals in their artwork because they believe, like Arnhem Land Aborigines, that the land was created to look like animals.

They also paint pictures that show weather such as cyclones and dust storms. These paintings don’t look like photographs, though. Sometimes artists choose to show the path a storm takes rather than the storm itself. Sometimes the artist does paint the storm, but in an abstract way.

Aborigines in the Kimberley area have a myth that is often portrayed in art from the area. According to the myth, creatures called Wandjina came out of the sea and sky and left paintings of themselves on rocks. The spirits of the Wandjina are believed to live in the places where their images appear. They were very powerful and could even control weather. Sometimes they brought good luck, but if they were made angry they could create heavy rains or floods or cyclones.

The Wandjina look human, with thick noses, long eyelashes, and halos or spiky hair. They are usually painted on a white background in yellow, red, or black.

Check out this photo gallery of people creating and enjoying artwork from the Kimberley region. See if you can find the painting of Wandjina.

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Aboriginal Art, Part I- Bark Painting

Aborigines have lived in Australia for thousands of years. They are the natives of Australia, just like Native Americans are the natives of the U.S. Aborigines have a long history of creating beautiful art that shows their beliefs, Australian animals, and even the weather that is typical of parts of Australia.

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting about the art of the Aborigines.

A lot of Aboriginal art shows the beliefs of the native Australians. The Aborigines believe that magical creatures lived on earth long before humans did. These creatures created the earth from flat land. Aborigines believe that all the land forms were created in the shapes of animals. For example, rivers were created in the shape of a snake.

In northern Australia, in an area called Arnhem Land, Aboriginal artists often paint on bark. The artists strip the bark off of eucalyptus trees. They let the bark dry and then paint on the inside of the bark. They use natural colors like brown, yellow, white, and orange.

The patterns and designs used in bark painting have been around for a long time. They were painted on bodies during rituals and used to decorate logs during certain ceremonies. Aboriginal artists began painting on pieces of bark about 100 years ago.

The artists paint scenes about the way the land was created. These paintings usually include animals because many of the Aboriginal myths were about animals.

The Aborigines also have myths about spirits who were so skinny they could be broken by wind. They lived in caves and under rocks where they were safe from the wind. They taught the Aborigines to hunt and to paint. These spirits, called Mimis, are found in many Aboriginal bark paintings.

Some paintings show constellations. The Aborigines see different pictures than we do when they look at the stars, though. Their constellation paintings often include animals, too.

You will also see paintings of footprints and paw prints. This is because the Aborigines are good at tracking animals and they are good hunters. The Aborigines hunt for food so hunting is very important to them.

Check out this gallery of Aboriginal bark painting from Arnhem Land.

Tomorrow, create your own Aboriginal bark painting!

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Art Angles

I've been working on a lesson plan for one of my classes and I thought you might be interested in some of the materials I've been preparing. The lesson is meant to teach 3rd graders to indentify right angles, acute angles, and obtuse angles. One of the activities I've been readying is a set of note cards with pictures on them. In the pictures, I've traced some of the angles and numbered them. The students are to tell whether each angle is right, acute, or obtuse. They are then to label each angle ABC. My note cards will be laminated so the students can label them and then erase them. This means I'll be able to reuse them.

Some of my images are photographs of objects like trees, fenses, and planes. Some, of course, are pictures of artwork. The artwork is below. If you want to use the images, copy them into a word document and resize them so they fit on note cards.

In order: 1. John James Audubon's Flamingo, 2. Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Girls at the Piano, 3. Henri Matisse's Jazz, 4. a Greco-Roman bronze sculpture called Boy with Thorn, 5. Gustave Courbet's Cliffs Near Etretat, 6. an Egyptian sculpture of Akhenaten, 7. Andre Derain's The Turning Road, 8. and a color field painting by Piet Mondrian.

Enjoy!

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P.S.

I love when you all do my job for me! First Michelle with the project, then, this morning, my mom sent me a link to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. If you live in Massachusetts, check it out. I'd love to read comments from anyone who has ever been to this museum.

Create Your Own Eric Carle Inspired Valentines

On Friday I recommended one of Eric Carle’s picture books, Draw Me a Star. Eric Carle is such a fantastic author and illustrator. He wrote and illustrated The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Tiny Seed, and he illustrated Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. And there are tons more. If you haven’t read any of his books, please do so. You will be delighted.

Michelle left a comment about the slide shows on Eric Carle’s website that shows how he paints his tissue papers and how he creates his pictures. I had not discovered those, so thanks!

She also linked to a photo of a piece of artwork she created following Carle’s instructions. It’s gorgeous. Make sure you check it out.

Carle also wrote and illustrated You Can Make a Collage: A Very Simple How-to Book. In this book, put out by Klutz, Carle shows you step-by-step how to create collages using painted tissue paper. The book comes with 72 painted tissue papers to create your own masterpieces with, and the book is full of great ideas for beautiful artwork.

I was inspired by all of this and thought, since Valentines Day is coming up, we might like to make our own Eric Carle inspired cards. Mine came out looking lovely and they weren’t too difficult to make, though it did take time and patience!

Supplies Needed:

Paints
Paintbrush
White Tissue Paper
Small Container
Water
Heart-shaped Tracers
Scissors
Construction Paper
Mod Podge or White Glue thinned with water
Foam Brush

Cover your workspace! I’m serious about this. The paint WILL bleed through the tissue paper.

Lay your tissue paper flat on your workspace

Choose a background color. Squirt some of that paint into your container and mix with about the same amount of water. Use quick, light brush strokes to cover your tissue paper with the paint. If you brush too hard you’ll tear your tissue paper. If this happens, it’s okay. You won’t need every inch of the tissue paper. Just keep going.
Let your tissue paper dry. Eric Carle recommends using this time to paint more sheets of tissue paper in different colors. I only used one sheet but you may want more than one pattern or color. Your tissue paper will need to dry for about 30 minutes.

Choose a second color. Mix the paint with water and brush parts of the tissue paper with it. I painted white slashed across my tissue paper. You may choose to paint zig-zags, dots, or swirls.

Let the tissue paper dry again.

Choose a third color. Mix with water and paint on a new pattern.
I used four colors but you may decide to use only three or try five. It’s all up to you and your imagination. Just remember to let your tissue paper dry after each new layer of paint.
When your finished tissue paper is dry, trace hearts of different sizes onto your paper. Try to fit as many hearts as you can. Carefully cut out the hearts.
Choose construction paper, fold it in half, and cut it into two cards. Repeat until you have as many cards as you wish to make.

Use your foam brush to brush Mod Podge onto the front of your card. White glue mixed will water will also work, but your card will not lay as flat. Stick your hearts in place. Gently brush another layer of Mod Podge over the hearts. Cover the entire front of your card with Mod Podge to make it smooth.
Repeat until you have decorated all of your cards.

Write special Valentines Day messages on the insides of the cards and give them to your friends and family. I’m sure they’ll love them!

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Create Your Own Jackson Pollock Masterpiece

I have posted before about Jackson Pollock and his drip paintings. You may remember that Pollock created his paintings by laying large pieces of canvas on the floor of his studio and dripping paint onto them. This is a messy process.

Today, make your own Jackson Pollock painting without all the mess.

Supplies Needed:

Paint
Plastic Spoon
Marbles
Box Top
Paper
Cover your workspace before you begin. You’ll need a place to set your paint covered spoon and marbles. You may also want a cup of water for rinsing you spoon. Or just use a different spoon for each color paint.

Set your sheet of paper inside the box lid.

Squirt paint onto your spoon. Drop a marble into the paint on the spoon and roll it around until it is covered with paint. You may need to squirt a little more paint on top of the marble.

Drop the marble into the box lid and roll it around. You may wish to coat the marble in paint a few times before switching to the next color. Just roll it in the spoon again, then drop it back on the paper.
Rinse your spoon or use a new one. Squirt a new paint color onto your spoon and roll a clean marble in it. Drop the marble into the box lid and roll it around.

Repeat with as many colors as you want. I recommend using about five colors.
Let your painting dry. Remove it from the box lid and enjoy!

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Etch A Sketch Art

More art to come, but please entertain yourselves with this fun artist. George Vlosich has created a number of masterful works of art on the Etch A Sketch! Watch this short video clip of Vlosich as he creates a portrait of President Barak Obama (about 4 minutes). Then click through a sampling of his other creations.

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