A nice mixed media project loosely based on Mattisse, both the goldfish bowl and his penchant for cutting out paper in his latter years, but I digress. Only a few kiddos stuck with the goldfish theme, but all in all this project went well and I’d do it again.
BACKGROUND PAINTING FIRST
We all started with recycled canvas and chose paint for the top part of our background. Whenever I do a mixed media where will will paint and use paper; I like to paint everything first then clean up all the paint and just have paper and glue out for the rest of the class. I had a sample of goldfish and did a turtle along with them in class.
{PRO-TIP} When using paint and paper in the same project for a mixed media, especially with younger kiddos, I like to paint everything first then put up the paint and just cut and glue paper for the rest of the class while our canvases dry.
I let them choose up to 3 colors plus white. We used small flat brushes for the background color, then round sponge brushes for the dots. I even had one camper turn all her dots into fruits. We stopped painting little over halfway down since we were going to cover this with paper.
PAPER BACKGROUND AND CRITTERS
Once we were done with paint we set them aside to dry and then chose the paper for the bottom part of the canvas background and decided what type of critter we wanted and spent the rest of the class cutting and glueing. I also had plenty of googly eyes on and and some leftover easter grass for a more 3d look. We then finished off any details with crayons, colored pencils and markers.
We had a little struggle in understanding all the steps, but the kids were pretty happy at the, end and that’s all that really matters. Next up and oldie but a goldie: bathroom tissue tube figurines.
Becca Does Art 