Eric Carle-Inspired Art

The Education Network has been celebrating Eric Carle's birthday all week. Check it out here and register if you're interested. They are a very friendly group!

We decided to join in the Eric Carle fun this morning. My husband is out of town and I figured we would need to have something to keep up busy anyway. This project took a lonnnng time today. It could easily be broken into 2-3 days for kids with shorter attention span. I ended up helping the girls A LOT by the end because they were impatient and tired. But overall, I think they liked this project. This is actually one that I conjured up myself!

Before we did anything else, the girls looked through our Eric Carle books: BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE; POLAR BEAR, POLAR BEAR, WHAT DO YOU HEAR?; and PANDA BEAR, PANDA BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE? We used to have THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR book, but we couldn't find it. They picked out which animal they wanted to make. Ella picked the frog and Lily picked the sea turtle:

First, we painted solid colors on pieces of paper. I cut pieces of cardboard to use as combs so we could "texturize" the paints. Many of Eric Carle's images have a great texture to them. This step is also good for practicing color theory (mixing colors). The girls LOVED this part! This could be all you do for Day 1 if you want to spread the project out.

We stopped to have lunch and let the paper dry. Then we broke the animal bodies down into their different parts and drew those separately on a piece of white paper. This way we could make as many mistakes as we wanted, erasing them and getting it right. And we wouldn't have to use up our painted paper for this. We then cut the shapes out of the white paper.


We used these white pieces as a pattern to trace and cut out our shapes on the painted paper. I ended up doing much of this step as the girls were pretty much ready to be done at this point. This could be the end of Day 2 if you're spreading the project out.

And finally, we glued the different pieces on the painted background paper. And then dabbed white paint for the eyes. I took the photos so I could post this. Once the white paint dries, they'll go back and add in the pupils. :-)

Voila! The girls' Eric Carle creations!