Creating Character Puppets

It's always a rewarding challenge to create projects that are intriguing to the kids in process and that they are really proud of.  Plaster is a material that can do both of these things. It's so much easier to use than paper mâché and the results are so much more immediate. We spent a few days during our Puppetry Week of summer camp creating these charming and charismatic puppets from plaster. 

To make the inner structure we used  balled up newspaper, cardboard cut into ear shapes, tape and tops cut off of a plastic water bottle.

Once the inner structure is formed we used the plaster gauze strips dipped in water to form the animal head. I added short dowels to the bottom of the plaster heads for the kids to hold onto.

After the kids painted their animals and while they were drying, the kids made hats, crowns, ties and scarves, but the kids didn't stop there. They then wanted to make glasses, mustaches, ear pieces, jewelry to create identities for each of their puppets. It was then time to dress up these creatures. We cut fabric for them to choose and plugged in the hot glue gun.

   

Paw Print Stamps

Aaahhhh summer flags. I love to watch the kids with their summer flags. Waving and watching the fabric flutter in the wind. This time we used the printing techniques of stamps to create the flags. 

When making stamps with kids the simpler the design the better, a nice graphic image. Usually I am encouraging the addition of more details when creating drawings. The addition of details can better define an image. But when making stamps the image has to be defined with just the outside lines. 

Foot prints seemed like a great way to talk about animals and create a design that is graphic. 

We began looking at animal foot prints. They got so excited to see each animal's footprint.

They drew the animal paw print of their choice on a piece of foam and after cutting them out we glued them to cut up 2X4s. Then the printing began. 

Happy Waving!

Miniature Worlds

We held a workshop a few weeks ago using mint tins that were donated to us by one of our generous parents. I so enjoy the challenge of coming up with projects when we get a large donation of a potential material. Since I am a big fan of collage and I love boxes, I thought it might be a good idea to combine them. 

With just some glue, scissors, gorgeous papers and a few old calendars (which are a great resource for images), we created little scenes inside the mint tins.  Using some pop up book technique we made them three dimensional. This is such a simple project that brings so much joy when I gaze upon them. 

Making Lines and Dots

Painting rocks is such a simple activity. My daughter loves collecting rocks. She loves the different shapes and how they feel in her hand. We have dozens of them lining the railing of our porch. She has   collected these rocks during our trips to rivers, hikes in the mountains, and walks along the beach.
But what to do with all these rocks. They are so beautiful on their own.

Adding some color seemed like a good ideas as well. I took the opportunity to talk about patterns with the kids and to make it more successful  instead of paint brushes we used q-tips and tooth picks to add the design. To make the design more recognizable we used one color and mixed it with white to create a few values of that color and then throw in another light opposite color. So our colors were blue and peach or gold.

They make me happy everyt ime I look at them. The possibilities of patterns was so abundant and delightful.

Happy Pattern Making!!

Terr = earth/ arium = receptacle

Living in Los Angeles one thing that is in abundance in our neighborhoods is succulents. When going for walks around town we can see all kinds of succulents; flapjacks, pinwheels, bigfoots, hens and chicks. Colors vary greatly with blues, purples, bright greens, deep reds. They are strange plants that grow beautifully in our sandy, clay like soil. If you take a small clipping from one of these succulents and place it in water,  roots will begin to sprout. Or you can just place it in very wet soil and eventually it will ground itself and grow roots.

When a fantastic little restaurant on our block, Four Cafe, kindly began saving their extra large pickle jars for us. I felt so lucky to have these receptacles to store a lot of our materials. But when contemplating the plethora of succulents in our neighborhood and even in my own yard, I managed to save enough jars for kids to make terrariums.  I mean what a great combination. 

Using small rocks, big rocks, sand and dirt, I thought we could take advantage of the transparency of the jars and layer the different materials to mimic the inner structure of the earth and lets face it,   because it looks beautiful to see the different textures of earthen materials.

The students chose their succulents and collectively decided to choose a rock to paint for the top of their "earth". Furthering our investigation we looked up succulent's name and the kids made labels for  their terrariums.

The result was a heavy, precarious and beautiful terrarium that the kids were excited to take home. 

Celebrating the Sun

For Mother's Day we made these lovely sun prints mounted on wood. These early photographs are a wonderful way for kids to explore the nature growing in their neighborhood, even if that nature is planted and controlled. We gathered leaves fallen from trees and clipped leaves and flowers from abundant bushes. 

Once we got back to the studio we furthered our investigation of our botanical bounty. We squished, smelled, we looked closely and compared sizes, shapes and colors before they made their thoughtful choices of which plants to use on their photographic prints. 

We used rocks to weigh done the plant materials so they wouldn't blow away in the wind. So just the count to 20 in the sun and then into the water bath to wash away the light sensitive chemicals. 

While we waited for the prints to dry the kids prepared their wooden bases for their prints by sanding down the edges to a smooth finished edge. Using drills they drilled holes in the top of the wood to pass a wire for hanging. 

A layer of Modge Podge under and over the sun print and they were finished. Moms will be happy about these. I know I would. 

Happy Mother's Day