Kids Art: Textured Paper Bookmarks

It's no secret that we love making painted textured papers at home. The kids and I try various materials to create textures, and over time, I have settled upon a few trusted favorites to produce the effects we like and keep going back to: #12 flat brush, natural sponge, scrubber sponge, paint roller, toothbrush.

As always, any available paper is game, but a staple is the plain backside of used copy/print paper.

Anyway, this set of papers were such fun as Oggie was zooming on full throttle, raring to go: picked out the colors we should mix, settled at his table with a stack of papers and materials, ready to paint away.

I doled out some lightly diluted red, yellow, blue, and white tempera paints in small canning jars, as usual. And gave him one of my paint palettes to start mixing. We talked about what we wanted to use the textured papers for: to make fruits collage for the Bookmarks, something that celebrates books, and something that inspires...

Which helped us zero in on the colors we wanted to end up with during the mixing process - purplish blue for plums, orang-ish red for strawberries, orange for oranges,  green plus a bit of yellow for pears.

Now, we did toss around ideas for various fruits until we agreed on the fairly good-sized ones (I *might* have steered him a bit towards fruits that are easier to cut out and collage). Blue for blueberries was a given, but, little tiny blue circles seemed a bit tedious to cut out as I would be in-charge of the cutting.

Inspiration comes from many places and am sure we were strongly influenced by a firm favorite book on our bookshelf, which set the direction for our work.

After painting the papers, we set it out for drying; I cut out the shapes; Og helped glue many of them (not all) on to the bookmarks; I added a few words; and they were ready!

Except, we were using a couple and found that the precious fruits kept wanting to snag on paper; so we decided to laminate the bookmarks

Kids Art: Net-Painted Pond Fish Cut Paper Collage

On and off we love to make textured papers in various colors - a great way to use up paints doled out for that session, as well as to explore various materials to create textures.

Once the painted textured papers are dry, they get sorted by color and put into the "Specialty Papers" cubby.

Many fun projects have come out of sifting through the specialty papers we've collected over time and finding new ways to use them. Most often they end up as cut-paper collages or Valentine hearts or greeting cards, something special.

One of the techniques we learnt from Irene Luxbacher's Jumbo Book of Art is to do "Net Painting" to create the scaled texture of fish.

Items Used:
A net bag such as the ones onions or fruits come in
acrylic paints (or tempera)
rag cloth pieces
cardstock (or other heavyweight) paper
rubberband or string or yarn to tie the net bag

1. Stuff a few pieces of rag cloth in the net bag and tie it closed.
2. Dole out some acrylic paints on a plate, dip the net bag filled with cloth, dab onto the cardstock paper.
3. Experiment first with how much pressure to apply, and how much paint to pick up to create the desired texture; try a combination of colors; add acrylic medium if the paints are too thick, or dilute a bit with water.
4. Allow to dry and cut out fish shape for the collage

Textured Papers Used for this Net-Painted Pond Fish Collage:

1. Background is Watercolor Plastic Wrap paper
2. Pond vegetation is Salt Sprinkled paper and Watercolor Plastic wrap paper
3. Fish is from Net-Painted paper

Oggie helped make the background and pond vegetation papers.

Ana helped with net painting and cutting out the pond plants and fish.

I added the details to the fish using chalk pastels and composed the collage.

Both the kids helped "glue" the pieces with the double-sided tape for added dimension.

Kids Crafts: Painted Textured Paper Hearts

Whereas it appears that we have been doing a lot of arts and crafts with planned precision and focused execution, unfortunately it is not so... things just sort of happen and we go with the flow. It's mostly organic...

Every once in a while, I do like to try something new with the kids; so I try to gauge their interest and look for that window of opportunity to do it with them. Sometimes it turns out extremely satisfying, at other times it becomes a valuable learning experience.

I know I mention this often: Usborne Book of Art Ideas is one of my favorites for inspirational ideas to try with the kids on and off. Of course, I am always scouting for ideas, scouring the web, silently thanking the wonderful people who freely share their talents thereby allowing me to get away with minimal effort.

Handy as it is on the kids' bookshelf, many a weekend afternoon or weekday evening, left to her own devices, I've noticed Ana reaching for this book (among others) and flipping through the pages lazily until the amorphous idea in her head solidifies and spurs her into action.

One of the favorites from Usborne Books of Art Ideas is to make Textured (Painted) Paper, which we then use for collages and such. There are a few suggested techniques and plenty of room left open to come up with our own.

A couple of years ago, we used quite a few of the gorgeous papers from various art sessions for heart cards. Ana was inspired to do the same this year, digging through the cubby where we save the works we liked. She chose papers that were made with 6 different techniques.

1. Natural Sea Sponge and Tempera Paints: Simply dab the paper with the sponge and let it create the patterns and textures on the paper

2. Scouring Sponge and Tempera Paints: Drop small dollops of paint of different colors across the top of the paper and drag the scouring sponge down or across or in any direction, lifting and continuing till the paper is covered with paint. Coarse nylon scouring pads work well, makes strong lines like large brush strokes.

3. "Rain Painting" with Watercolor crayons or Watercolor pencils:  On heavyweight watercolor paper, just scratch on some colors using watercolor crayons or watercolor pencils; then leave the paper out in the rain. Let the rain drops wash the paper with interesting patterns. If left out in heavy rains, the paper will get soggy and fall apart, so, watch closely; use a brush and smear the water a bit to spread out the colors, if preferred. Allow to dry.

4. Salt-sprinkled Painting: As shared here

5. Watercolor Plastic Wrap: As done before Rather than the dark blues and greens that Oggie chose for his work, Ana chose to mix a pleasant lilac and powder blue.

6. Oil Pastel Resist: As in this post

Punch a hole; add a flower or a goody; write a message on the back; and a thoughtful, hand-made token of friendship is ready to give out to friends.

Oggie chose to give melted recycled crayon for his friends, along with the Watercolor Plastic Wrap cards he made for them. Same procedure as I've done before with Ana, except this time we used snowman moulds. Wrap one up in a piece of tissue paper, attach a heart card, and a special memento is ready for a friend. Who can refuse crayons? Especially multicolored ones?

Kids Art: Textured Paper

One of my favorites for art inspiration is Usborne Book of Art Ideas. It is brimming with ideas to try out for myself... and watching me do something new sparks Ana's interest and she usually follows the inevitable, "♫What are you doing?" with a tinkling "Can I help you do that?♫", and thus we end up doing a few new things on and off.

Anyway, one of the ideas from this book that I use frequently is to create textured paper - i.e., just paper with various textured patterns. The textured papers can then be used to create other art by cutting and layering.

I like this as it helps me use up the paints I dole out for the kids during art sessions - it feels criminal to waste paints. So, when they are done and have gone to wash their hands, I stash away the remaining paints to create textured paper, using more fresh paint as the mood calls for.

Every once in a while, Ana would join me to play around with creating textured paper. Her favorite is to use fork and child-size whisk to create patterns and textures. We use all kinds of paper from heavy-weight watercolor or bristol paper to card stock to butcher paper.



We can either dry brush on several layers with directional brush strokes that show through, or use aids like corrugated edges of cardboards, natural sponge, cling wrap, or even fork or whisk for that matter, to create textures and patterns... swirls, stripes, blobs anything - Explore and Express is the mantra...

When the paper is dry, I save them for later use in other paper craft and art projects.

After the recent roll printing, we had quite a bit of red paint leftover. So, Ana used her hands, large brush, even a cotton textured washrag to spread the paint all over some white cardstock paper, and then cut out hearts to use for Valentine's Day cards for her friends. I love the textures and patterns she created - makes unique cards, even if they are all red and heart-shaped.



Sometimes, she likes to just play with different tools to see what patterns she can create and how she can repeat/reproduce it.



Anyway, maybe soon, I can share the few uses these textured paper have been put to... it seems like life is just boxed into some hectic rushed routine with just a small window for the cultivation of human spirit... and if I can inspire Ana and Og to recognize and nurture that part of their spirit by just fostering mine, I should consider it a blessing...

Kids Art: Watercolor and Cling Wrap

Continuing the theme of art projects we did recently, here is another.

I was browsing for simple activities with stunning results that can be easily done at home during the Winter Holidays and came across this. I had to try it with Ana.

Items Used: Watercolor paper, Acrylic paper, diluted tempera paints or watercolors, large paint brush, and plastic cling wrap.

1. Simply apply blobs of color on heavy-weight paper.
2. Place a Cling Wrap sheet on top while still wet, and crinkle it to form patterns.
3. Allow to dry.
4. Remove the cling wrap.
5. Voilà!

We left it by the heating vent, of course, to speed up drying. And proudly showed it to Appa when he got home!

Heavy-weight paper works best, and, the nature and quality of the paper makes a difference, as we would expect. Acrylic paper had a more smooth finish with fractal-like formations.



Whereas, Watercolor paper had a coarse textured look with an interesting cracked crystalline pattern.



Usually, I talk about interesting things we could try with materials at home to gauge Ana's interest on any particular day.

Ana has been exploring a lot of open-ended art activities since babyhood and has shown signs of being more than ready to do something definite, with a purpose, but which is also new with room to explore. Knowing her materials and having some expectations helps her take the first step in a new direction.

When she expresses readiness to try out, I assemble the materials, describing them, repeating the names of materials that are new to her.

And, as usual, she wasn't satisfied with making just one, so she created a few, playing with colors and textures, some of which weren't as stunning as the others as we found out. But then, 'stunning' is quite subjective anyway :)