Finger (and hand and foot!) painting!

Finger painting (and painting with other parts of the body) is great fun and essential for the creative development of babies and young children. It is messy but one of the cheapest and easiest activities that you can do with your little one - and with the weather warming up it's also a great activity to do out in the garden!

Here's my tips for a fun and stress free painting experience!

1. Prepare your area. It's not going to be a fun experience for you or your child if you can't relax because you're too worried about the mess! Cover the painting surface with newspaper or a large sheet or cloth. I do a lot of activities at my toddler classes on the floor - it allows the children to move around and explore without the restriction of a table and chair - and have huge pieces of plastic sheeting I use to cover the floor. Fill a bowl with some warm soapy water ready for washing and either get your child (and you) into some clothes you don't mind getting a bit painty. Or even strip your little one down to nappy or pants if it's warm enough! Have some towels and wipes/kitchen towel handy. Also have an area ready to put down the finished artwork - if you're doing this outside you can peg the finished paintings on the washing line to dry!

2. Get some large pieces of thick paper. Thin copier paper won't withstand an enthusiastic painter! I love lining paper - cheap to buy in bulk and you can cut off as much as you want. Thick sugar paper is also good. The bigger the better as it allows your little one the freedom to get creative over a much bigger space.

3. Use thick paint. It reduces splashing from enthusiastic little hands. The texture of the paint is also important for little ones to allow them to explore the sensation of the paint on their hands and fingers. You can buy paint especially made thicker for finger painting (ELC sell pots of it) or you can make your own using cornflour, water and food colouring! You can also add texture to the finger painting experience by adding a little play sand to paint for extra sensory stimulation.

4. If you're trying finger painting with a very young child who is still exploring everything with their mouth try making "edible paint" - finger painting with vegetable purees (carrot, pea), drinking chocolate, yoghurt, even jelly is lots of fun!

One of my own little ARTventurers after a fingerpainting session at home - Isaac age 13mths.

4. Use plates to put the paint onto so it's accessible for little fingers and hands. I have a load of plastic dinner plates that are fab for toddler painting.

5. Choose bright vibrant colours and put out one colour on each plate. Otherwise it will quickly become a large brown sludgy mess! But encourage colour mixing on the paper - what happens if you put red over the yellow or blue and red?

6. Some children will dive straight into the paint and get started straight away! Some will be wary of the sensation of the paint on their hands and be unsure what to do. Show them by getting stuck in yourself - show them how to make fingerprints and handprints on the paper and they'll soon get the hang of it! Some children may be happier to have their fingers or hand painted with a paint brush first rather than dip it into the paint.

7. Talk to your child while they are painting - how does it feel on their hands, which colour are they using....Try painting with fingers, toes, hands, feet......

8. Have fun - it's all about the creative process, just relax and let your child explore and experiment!

St Patricks day art activity - cookie cutter printing!

With St Patricks Day as well as Mothers day this weekend we did a really simple toddler art activity for St Paddy at Little ARTventurers this week - green and glittery!

What you'll need -

Paper (we used green but can be any colour!)
Cookie cutters
PVA glue
Glitter (we used green)
Green Paint (we used a couple of different shades)

Pour out the paint onto a plate (or two if you are using different shades) and the PVA onto a different plate. Let your child press the cookie cutters into the paint/glue and then onto the paper to make prints. Sprinkle with glitter to add sparkle! In order to encourage and develp fine motor skills I never put glitter out in shakers but pour an amount into tubs so that the children can pinch up small amounts with their fingertips and sprinkle onto the paper. Sounds messy but believe me it's not as messy as giving them a whole shaker - just make sure you've also got a large tray or plate ready to shake off the excess onto!

Here's a few my Little ARTventurers created this week - fab!

Paper bag monsters!

This week is half term and I've had such a lovely week I wish we could do it all again! I feel really lucky that although I have been working I'm doing something that I absolutely love, plus I've had lots of time with my two little ones who've been able to come along to work with me when I've been running classes.

This week's Little ARTventurers sessions were titled "Monster Messy Madness" - so called because we made monsters, it was quite messy, and some of the things we had a go at painting with were a bit mad! (bubble wrap and string painting....). One of the activities we did that went down a storm were the paper bag monsters so thought I'd share the idea on here.....it's a quick and easy project that works well for all age groups.

For the monsters I used pre bought white paper bags - however if you don't have one of these you could just sellotape two pieces of paper together leaving one side open.

As there are lots of littlies at my sessions I had pre drawn eyes and cut them out plus pre cut other shapes out of card for noses, mouths, teeth, monster spikes etc. I also provided card and scissors so the older ones could cut out their own monster features!

The children used glue to stick their features onto the bag to make their monster faces. Some were scary, some quite friendly! We then stuffed the bags with rolled up balls of newspaper and then sealed them shut with sellotape. Colour was added with paint - using fingers or sponges to give the monsters spots!

Here's some of the monsters we made......

You could add arms and legs to your paper bag monster too!

Enjoy!

Name art!

Today at the Saturday art club we created some artwork out of our names - it's something I remember doing myself as a child and thought it would be great fun to try with the kids.

The current Saturday class is a large group of children who range widely in age and ability - the youngest are 4 and the oldest are 12 so as you can imagine it's a real challenge to find a project week after week that they can all do, have fun with and gain maximum benefit from! The class is so busy that we've literally run out of chairs - great news that it's so popular and the children are bringing their friends along but it means we really have run  out of space. Therefore from next half term we're splitting the class - some of the older children will move onto an afternoon class which will be more structured and look at different drawing techniques, cartoon drawing etc and the morning class will remain a fun class aimed at the under 10s exploring and experimenting with different materials, mediums and techniques.

Anyway....back to the name art! I chose it for todays class as it is something that can be easily adapted to the differening ages and abilities - the kids really got into the idea and created some great pieces of artwork!

To do this project I gave each child a sheet of a4 white card, pencil, black marker and charcoal. We also had out on the table coloured pens, oil pastels, crayons, and pencils to add colour plus scissors, glue, wiggly eyes and coloured card

We folded the card lengthways and I showed each child how to write their name in joined up writing along the fold - in pencil first and then going over in charcoal. It was a challenge getting all of them to do this in big letters (they have a tendency to want to do tiny detailed drawing and writing!) and to make sure they kept the bottom of their letters along the fold and joined all the letters up. Some with shorter names could do their middle name too.

Once outlined with charcoal we folded the paper, pressed down to make an imprint and then opened the sheet up again. What we had was then an upside down image of the writing on the opposite side of the paper! I got the children to outline both sides with the black marker to make all of the lines bold and black - we then looked at the shapes created and decided what they were going to be! Most children decided that they would make theirs into "name aliens" but some made other creatures or characters, one did a centipede and one made her name into a fountain!

We then added colour using the different things I'd put out for them to use - most of the children added wiggly eyes and then decided to then cut theirs out and mount it on coloured card which was really effective!

I think the finished results look great - can you tell what some of the names are?

Weather themed crafts!

This week at Little ARTventurers we did some weather themed activities - a lovely colourful session to brighten up the grey January days!

Firstly we painted some gorgeous brightly coloured rainbows on the floor. Big and bold art activities are always a firm favourite so we used huge pieces of paper for the artwork. I put out plates of paint in all of the colours of the rainbow plus lots of collage bits and pieces - tissue paper, feathers, glue, scissors, card etc. The younger kids loved painting all over their paper and doing handprints, the older children tried painting their rainbows with the right colours and then sticking the collage materials on top as a colour matching exercise.

I think you'll agree these are fab!.....

We made sparkly suncatchers using paper plates and pieces of sticky backed plastic! If you were wanting to try this one at home you'll need

Paper plate

Sticky backed plastic

Tissue paper

Sequins, glitter or other sparkles!

Paint

Some string or thread or something for hanging

I pre cut the centre circles out of the plates and also pre cut circles of sticky backed plastic to a slightly larger size than the cut out hole in the centre of the plate (if that makes sense!). I stuck one circle onto the reverse of the plate so that the centre of the plate was then a sticky area for the kids to work with. They made their suncatchers by sticking tissue paper and sparkles onto the sticky area - no glue needed and lots of fun! When they had finished we stuck the other plastic circle on the top to "seal" it - they then decorated the rest of the suncatcher with paints, paper streamers etc - add a hole and thread with string for hanging and hey presto! A very colourful sparkly suncatcher!

What else did we do for Weather week? We made some rainshakers with cardboard tubes - filled them with lentils and dried spaghetti and decorated them with paints and paper. The children loved making these and we used cellophane paper to seal the contents in at each end which meant that the children could still see inside them. We then used them in our music time at the end of the session!

We also made storm clouds using cotton wool and used paint and collage materials to create some very colourful umbrellas!

A lovely colour filled week to banish those January blues!!



A copy of our January Newsletter!

For those who aren't on our email list here's a copy of our January newsletter :

Hi everyone and happy New Year!

Having eventually washed all of the glitter out of my hair following our super sparkly Christmas sessions,  there are lots of exciting things being planned at ARTventurers HQ for the Spring!

February half term is already hurtling towards us and we’re running two extra special holiday sessions called “Monster Messy Madness”! Paper bag monsters, string painting, puppets, modelling and more….it’s going to be tons of fun and places are already getting booked up.  This is where we’ll be :

Tuesday 14^th Feb  10am – St Johns Church, Ashbrooke

Thursday 16^th Feb 10am – Whitburn Parish Hall, Whitburn

The half term sessions  are £6 per child including all art and craft materials and refreshment for the little ones, sibling discount available. As our Christmas sessions were fully booked please do let me know asap if you want to book a place!

We’re also really excited to be running a regular Little ARTventurers class at Whitburn Parish Hall on Thursday mornings starting next month. It’s a fantastic hall with great access and lots and lots of space for creative fun. We’ll be running two special taster sessions there on Thurs 2^nd and Thurs 9^th Feb – you can book both sessions for the special price of just £8! – and then the new term will commence after Feb half term week. If you would like to join us please let me know and if you could also help spread the word by passing the details on to any friends with little ones who might be interested that would be great!

See you soon – and here’s to a happy, healthy and creative 2012 for us all!

Fiona x

ARTventurers – laugh, explore, create!

www.artventurers.co.uk

Brrrrrrr - frosty pictures!

It is sooooooo cold outside - it was minus 2 when we set out on the school run this morning! But now safely back in the warm I thought I'd share some of the fab frosty pictures the Little ARTventurers created when we did a "Winter" theme recently.

Puffy paint snow

We made our own puffy paint to create our snowy pictures using shaving foam and PVA glue. We squirted the foam and glue onto large plates and mixed it round and round using paintbrushes - this was great fun and the children loved swirling it round and round and making patterns as they mixed.

We then used the paint to paint snowmen - adding paper and card pieces for the features and a sprinkle of glitter for extra sparkle. Some of the children fingerpainted snow falling in the sky

 

Some of the children also used paper doilies, puffy paint and glitter to create these fab snowflakes (using the doilie as a stencil) - how fab would these look cut out and hung up at a window?!)

The puffy paint is great fun for the children to paint with and dries with a great texture to it

Frosty trees

We used cotton wool, paint and a sprinkling of sugar to create frosty tree pictures - the sugar provides a perfect frosty finish!

Handprint mittens

Most little ones love handprint art and it's always lovely to have them to keep as a reminder of how much they've grown! We made some very cute handprint mittens using cut out mitten shapes, card, glitter and paint. Some of the class punched holes in these so they could be hung up at home.

Hope everyone is wrapped up warm today!

x