A couple of weeks ago, our Mini Makers dove into this fun, open-ended sculpture project (the inspiration for this project came from the Art Bar blog).  When they walked into the room, there were cardboard pieces in various shapes and sizes all over the table, pre-hole-punched.  With tempera paint sticks and bright-colored dotters, the young artists filled those shapes with colors.

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While they were working, I read them the book Sandy’s Circus by Tanya Lee Stone. The book is about American artist Alexander Calder, who is known for making colorful, playful sculptures that moved.  That’s pretty much where we were headed as well.

Once our pieces were all full of color, we were ready for the next step. I passed out wooden skewers and a handful of air-dry clay.  They created a ball out of the clay, and then planted the wooden skewer inside.  From there, the young artists could build and stack their sculptures as they saw fit, using the cardboard pieces and small balls of clay..

Lastly, I had liquid tempera paint available to add even more color to their creations.

And here are some of the fun finished products!

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​Our focus yesterday in the Mini Makers class was Lines.  We were inspired by the book Lines That Wiggle by Candace Whitman.  It’s super charming and has lovely illustrations. 

After reading the book, my 4-5 year olds were eager to look around the room and point out all the different kinds of lines they could find — wavy, straight, zig-zag, dotted, curly . . .

Now for the project that was inspired by the book.  Our materials were . . .

• 8x10 black cardstock
• scraps of painted paper and construction paper
• scissors
• glue
• oil pastels

First, they filled their black paper with as many different kinds of lines as they could manage. I encouraged them to use a variety of colors, and even to overlap lines.

Then we made 3-D lines (and we discussed 2-D vs. 3-D, and that 3-D artworks are called sculptures).  One key step is to count to 10 slowly every time you glue a side down, otherwise it will pop right off when you attempt to glue the other side.

The kids really got into these paper sculptures.  It was a bit of an engineering puzzle for them to figure out different ways they wanted their lines to go.

(Project inspiration came from this blog post)

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Last week our Mini Makers class (4-6 year olds) made some clay pinch pots.  I have never done this project with such a young group and was so impressed with how well they did.

The pinch pot is a classic intro-level clay project. You simply start with a ball of clay, press your thumb inside to create a small hole, and then continue to pinch with your thumb inside, turning it around like a steering wheel, until you have a small pot.  You can use the surface of the table to tap the top and bottoms to make it level.

​I found this great visual explanation on Mini Matisse.

I don’t have a kiln, so we used air dry clay instead.  After forming the pots, I provided pony beads, jewels, and sequins for the students to press into the clay and bedazzle their creations.  

I love how the little pots each have their own personality.  

Now that the clay has hardened, I plan on sealing them by painting on a coat of clear varnish on each pot.

A great picture book to read with this project is The Pot that Juan Built.  I worried my little folks would find the repetition in the book a bit tedious (because I think that when I’m reading aloud), but they were super into it.  It follows the process of creating a clay pot, from finding the clay underground to baking it in a fire. And I love that it features a real ceramic artist from Mexico, Juan Quezada.

Yesterday, I had the honor of welcoming four young artists in our home art studio for our first class of Mini Makers.  These 4-7 year olds showed up ready to create!  ​

Our theme was primary colors.  We were inspired by the book Mix It Up by Herve Tullet.  It’s simple and fun interactive book about coloring mixing.

After reading the book together, the little artists were ready to do some color mixing themselves.  With this project, my goals were to teach how to use the paintbrushes and paint responsibly and to give the students a chance to experiment with mixing colors on their own.

We used liquid watercolors in red, yellow and blue (I love liquid watercolors because they create such vibrant colors, as long as you're painting on watercolor paper).

Before class, I put masking tape on the watercolor paper in the form of a grid, just to provide some something interesting to interact with (pro tip: anytime you paint with watercolor, it's a good idea to tape the paper onto a flat surface, so it doesn't curl as it dries).  The grid also made the one paper turn into 6 little spaces, and in each space they could play with a different combo of the primary colors.

And after the paint dries, taking off the masking tape is a different kind of magic.

(I used to do this same project with my Kindergartners when I taught elementary art full-time.  I originally got the idea from this blog post. )

After all that painting, we got some wiggles out by dancing to this super fun primary color song by OK Go.

From there, we dove into another primary-color-themed project, but I'll save that for the another blog post.