Colorful Crafts

It's finallyyyyyy getting warm out and it was just the right time for an hour of colorful, springy crafting! Last Saturday's aptly named Colorful Crafts program consisted for 6 stations that the kids (and adults) could freely move between to make different...well, colorful crafts.

Here's what I set up:

1. Hand Print Color Mixing
2. Rainbow Crayons
3. Watercolor Tape Resist
4. Watercolor Crayon Resist
5. Fingerprint Doodle Art
6. Rainbow and Cloud Wall Hangings

This kind of craft program is my favorite kind of craft program because there isn't too much weight on one craft. You can use up leftover stuff, do repeats of old projects, and try new things you're not totally confident about. Less pressure because if one thing is only okay, there are a bunch of other projects to make up the difference. Here's the breakdown:

Hand Print Color Mixing

This is an oldie but a goodie for me. I've used this project over and over again and I just always love it. Apart from the mess, I think the patrons like it too. It's quick, totally fun for kids, and even educational! I found this one years ago on Pinterest, but I've done it enough times that I sort of consider it mine now (apologies to the original brain that came up with this!) All you do is paint one hand one primary color (say, red), one hand another primary color (say, blue) and stamp down. Then you lift your hands, rub 'em together, and stamp again to see what it makes (in this case, purple). Here's a link to another time I did this craft.

Rainbow Crayons

What's to say? This one is just rainbow crayons (these from Oriental Trading) and white paper. The supply is the craft. Despite its simplicity, it's no less awesome and well-liked than the other stuff. In fact, it might have been the all-around favorite for the kids last week! More complicated does not equal more fun!

Watercolor Tape Resist

I did this project a few times before, most notably in my Watercolor Workshop in October 2015 (when I discovered the secret to making this work was to use painters tape instead of masking tape). This was probably the favorite project craft among the kids who were more patient, meticulous, and on the older end of the age group. For this project, you cover the paper (we used watercolor paper) with strips of painters tape (see the first picture above) and then paint in all the shapes. Then, when the paint is at least mostly dry, you rip off the tape to reveal a cool finished product. So cool! Everyone was appropriately impressed.

Watercolor Crayon Resist

Also from my Watercolor Workshop, watercolor crayon resist is an easy-to-do-craft and especially cool because the crayon drawing is invisible until you paint over it, like a little magic trick. Saturday's Colorful Crafts program, however, consisted of no watercolor crayon resist paintings. Instead, the white crayons I put out remained untouched and a few very enthusiastic painters just enjoyed using watercolors to paint freely. Hey, that's cool too.

Fingerprint Doodle Art

Thank you, Ed Emberley and your Fingerprint Drawing books. For this craft, I put out stamp pads, paper, black pens, baby wipes, and lots and lots of examples, and let the kids (and parents) be creative. It was fun, but for whatever reason, this table was less popular than the other tables. Totally not what I'd expected! I do, however, feel the need to say that (1) I REALLY enjoyed making my sample for this project and (2) This may have been more fun for the adults than the kids (and probably would work really well with the school-age crowd). But it's ok, I mean, adults deserve a little fun too, right? The kids can have the other 5 crafts, the adults can take this one. I'm okay with it.

Rainbow and Cloud Wall Hangings

My coworker, Jen (of Elephant and Piggie Party) made this craft for one of her programs a while ago and I totally swiped it from her (thank you). It consisted of pre-cut strips of paper in lots of different colors and pre-cut clouds. Add in some glue sticks, string for hanging, and you've got yourself a Rainbow and Cloud Wall Hanging.

What worked least: The watercolor crayon resist craft didn't happen, which was kind of a bummer. Maybe it wasn't enticing enough? Or maybe the watercolors themselves were just TOO enticing to bother with those silly white crayons. I don't know, but the crayons remained untouched and therefor, that's what craft worked the least.

What worked best: It's a tie between the watercolor tape resist and the rainbow crayons. I think almost everyone in the program colored with the rainbow crayons for at least a few minutes and some kids made like, 15 different pictures with them. So those were definitely a hit. As far as the watercolor tape resist, not everyone did this craft but those who did really, really enjoyed it!

Gravity Painting

Inspired by this way nicer version of gravity painting (care of Let The Wild Rumpus Start: Adventures of a Children's Librarian) that I saw on Storytime Underground's Facebook, I expanded the idea and did my own kind of Jackson Pollock-y art with the kids last week. This was for those entering grades K-2.

I had two different kinds of "gravity painting" for the kids to try. I'd planned on first telling them all about Jackson Pollock, even brought in books to show them them pictures of his work, but I wound up diving right in and skipping the lecture part all together. It just didn't feel right. Anyway, here are the crafts:

Gravity Painting #1

For Gravity Painting #1, I used liquid watercolor, these plastic paint pipettes from S&S, and watercolor paper taped (with painters tape) to the bottom of tables. When the kids came in the room, I asked them to each sit/kneel/stand on the floor (which was covered with butcher paper in preparation for massive drips) in front of a sheet of watercolor paper. I showed them how to use the pipettes--a not-too-difficult-task that they got the hang of immediately--then they started to drip paint down their sheets of paper, letting it make crazy lines and then pool into the paper on the floor. It was easy, but cool! The kids were way more free and uninhibited with this than I was when I made my sample. They totally just kinda felt it! Here are some action shots:

Cool, right? I only wish I didn't run out of watercolor so quickly. I failed to account for the fact that a lot of it would wind up spilled over on the table because, well, these are kids we're talking about. Also, it was messy. I'm not a total dummy, but I hadn't expected this craft to get as messy as it did. I'm talking paint on the walls, paint on the floors, paint on faces, and paint in hair. PAINT EVERYWHERE. It was a lot of paint. And a lot of spills. 

But I guess that means they had a good time? Here are some awesome finished products:

 

Gravity Painting #2

For Gravity Painting #2, we used pieces of twisted paper cord from Paper Mart, dipped into paint (washable tempra), and dragged/splattered across black construction paper with no rhyme or reason. Some kids got really into it. Most kids wound up just straight up using their hands, like creative little messy geniuses. It's amazing how free and artistic kids can get. Why can't I just be a kid? No inhibitions. Look at them go:

What worked least: The mess--so much mess. I actually felt a lot of guilt sending the kids home looking how they did, all covered in paint. I assured the parents that everything was washable and all of them seemed understanding, but still, those kids came in the room clean and left dirty, and I felt bad. And that's not to mention the straight up destruction of the room. Some of the wall paint can be seen in the photo above. Look around head-height on both the left and the right of the artist. My coworkers totally loved this, especially the Maintenance Department.

What worked best: I think I gave the kids a place where they could freely make abstract art without rules or restrictions. And I think for many of the kids, it really filled something in them that may not have otherwise gotten filled. Also these paintings are COOL. I even like my own, lame, adult ones!

Yay, gravity!

Watercolor Workshop

This morning I had Watercolor Workshop for ages 3-5. It was easy to do and both the kids and the parents loved it!

This program was inspired 100% by this post on CraftWhack. I saw it on Pinterest a few months ago and the next day Watercolor Workshop was on the calendar for October!

First, I started with a short storytime. I read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (accompanied by our golden retriever puppet and my homemade sticky spots, which sadly, are losing their sticky) and Perfect Square by Michael Hall. The kids liked them both, although I think the started to get a little squirmy toward the end of Perfect Square. No problem though! It was time to move on to the painting!

I had five tables set up, each with the supplies for a different watercolor technique to try. I handed each child a watercolor palette and told them to carry it around with them from table to table. Since the kids were with their parents, I let them move around freely between the tables so they could try all the different things. This definitely worked and I think treating each table as a "station" made this all extra exciting for the kids. At each station I had: my sample (see below), a sign explaining what technique to do and how to do it, and all the necessary supplies. A PDF of the 5 signs can be downloaded here! These signs really, really helped because the parents were able to show their kids what to do without having to wait for me to come to them. Again, a PDF of the 5 signs can be downloaded here. I would highly recommend using them or making your own if you do a program like this!

Here are the five watercolor techniques:

Wax Crayon Resist

This is probably the most popular and most "classic" watercolor technique. It's easy to do and especially cool because the crayon drawing is invisible until you paint over it (unless you use a crayon color other than white). It's like a little magic trick, the way the watercolors resist the wax to reveal the drawing. Some kids totally loved revealing their hidden art; some were frustrated by not being able to see what they were drawing. But I think most of the kids didn't feel strongly one way or the other, barely noticing the wax resist at all and just enjoyed painting and mixing colors on the paper. That's cool too!

Draw Over with Pencil

When I made my sample above, more of the watercolor dried than I wanted. I guess I just waited a few minutes too long to start doodling, but actually it was still fun to draw on the colorful canvas I'd painted myself. I told the kids to try drawing on some parts when it was kind of wet and some parts when it was dry so they could see how the two differed, but actually many of them drew on it first and then painted over it. Not exactly what I'd envisioned, but again, it doesn't really matter. The kids had fun being creative with different art mediums so it's all fine by me. This also wound up being the station that the slower working kids skipped, so only a handful of the group even went to this table at all.

Blot with Paper Towel

This requires very wet paint. All you do is wad up a ball of paper towel and blot at the wet paint to make a white, textured shape appear. Some of mine look like sideways hearts! For whatever reason, maybe just that it was a little less cool than the others, I don't know if this station was much of a hit. It wound up being the table where the kids just painted pretty pictures. Eh, again, doesn't matter since everyone had fun.

Masking Tape Resist

This one is always more of a challenge than it should be because ripping masking tape off of watercolor paper is just plain hard. It's definitely an adult job and not for pre-school hands (not even necessarily for all adult hands). BUT today, I figured out a secret accidentally! When I grabbed what I thought was three rolls of masking tape from the draw, it turns out I'd accidentally grabbed a roll of painters tape instead. It wound up being wayyyy easier to pull off! So that's the secret to this! Painters tape! This table was possibly the kids' favorite of all of them. They had a good time painting and mushing around the colors and then were appropriately impressed by their finished products when they saw the perfect, straight, white lines that were revealed upon taking off the tape. Super fun!

Salt on Very Wet Paint

I think this one was one of the parents favorites and one of mine too, although I feel like it was kind of lost of the kids. The effect of the salt doesn't "develop" immediately upon sprinkling; it takes a few minutes and then, as the water colors start to dry around the salt, you really see the coolness of it. Then when the paint is dry, you wipe the all the salt away. For some reason, this sort of reminds me of those Smithsonian crystal growing kits we played with as kids, except in paint form. You can see the results best in the blue part of my sample. Again, maybe this one was just more impressive for the adults than the kids, but they had fun painting anyway and making sure their paint was extra wet for the salt.

Overall, what a great time! The kids all got really creative this morning!

What worked least: What what worked least is actually that this program worked so well, that I should have made it longer! It was scheduled for 45-minutes but some of the more meticulous kids didn't get to try everything. With a little more time, maybe they could have. But I'd say that's a pretty good problem to have though, right?

What worked best: This program was a total success! It was my first time doing it and I wasn't sure what to expect but it was really, really fun (again, thank you x 1000 to this post on CraftWhack). But probably because it surprised me and helped me for the future, but I'd say the best thing about this morning was my accidental painters tape discovery. I can't believe how much easier painters tape is to rip off than masking tape. I mean, it makes sense, as this is painters tape's only job, but man! Of course!

What other art programs can I do? This was awesome!