2012: Project 6--Frank Stella-Inspired Cardboard Sculpture

This was one of the last projects we tried this past summer. I came across the artist Frank Stella on Pinterest. I had not heard of him before, but I was immediately drawn to his geometric artwork and his bright sculptures. I thought it would be fun to show the girls his artwork and create cardboard sculptures. I was first inspired to try this project after seeing this project posted on The Chocolate Muffin Tree blog

Here are some examples of Stella's work that I showed the girls before we started our project:

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I thought it was fun to show them images with people in them so the girls could get a sense for the large scale of his artwork.

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 And some of his sculptures:

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After I showed the girls Frank Stella's artwork, I showed them Chocolate Muffin Tree's cardboard project. Then I gave them a piece of cardboard and our bin of recycled materials and told them to get to it. We received how to use a hot glue gun safely and they were off! I think they really enjoyed the process of creating these sculptures. I love all the concentration you see in the photos as they are creating!

I thought it was simply amazing how they manipulated the cardboard and worked the glue fun! I didn't help them with these AT ALL!

Top image is my 9 year old's, bottom image is my (then) 6 year old's.

After they were done creating their sculptures, I spray painted them white.

And then they were going to paint them with acrylic paints. Ella picked cool colors.

Lily picked warm colors.

I admit that this project might have been a bit too ambitious for the end of the summer. Even though there was more than a week between when they created the sculptures and when they were going to paint them, the girls just were not that interested in painting the sculptures. They did a few tubes the first day. Then I tried to get them to keep going, but they just didn't feel like it. So unfortunately, we don't have a finished project. I still have them up in the closet. Maybe they will finish them someday. Maybe next summer. ;-) They absolutely LOVED the construction part of this though. I will have to remember that and see what I can come up with in the future that can feed off that.

2012: Mommy Art Camp--Toilet Paper Tube Owls

Note: I am hoping to put a PDF document together with all of our bird art camp projects in one place for anyone interested (though I'm not sure when I'll get it all done). With this in mind, I am not going to go into quite as many how-to details on these projects. But, the projects are fairly self-explanatory. :-)

I found these adorable owls on Pinterest (and also these and these) and thought the girls would get a kick out making something similar. The original project used scrapbooking supplies and tools to create the owls. I may be a crafter, but a scrapbooker I am not. So I didn't have any of these on hand except for the circle punches. Instead, we raided our recycled materials bin for toilet paper tubes. And I raided the local hardware store's paint chip display and we went to work!

Here are the parts you'll need to create your owl:

We punched the paint chip samples with a smaller circle punch.

 Then first painted the cardboard tube with white tempera paint.

 Then, they covered it with a paint color of their choice (We used our Biocolor paint).

 Here are the girls' pieces all set to go:

 They used glue dots to adhere their pieces to the cardboard tube.

 Last we added the eyes:

And here they have their super adorable paper tube owls:

 They played with them like finger puppets. And used their yarn bird nests too.