Activity Ideas:
Candle Wax Painting
Materials:  wax candle, paper, water colors, paint brush.
Directions: Draw a pattern of scene with a wax candle onto a sheet of white paper. Drawing will be almost
invisible. Have child paint entire sheet with water color. When the paint dries, the original invisible drawing
will show through.

Your own Abstract
Mix runny paint in different colors and drop several large blobs onto paper. Then, using a straw, get your
child to blow the paint into funny lines and squiggles so all the colors mix and overlap.  

Stuffed Bottle Collage
Stuff a bottle with pretty things: scraps of paper, glitter, pieces of lace doilies, ribbons remnants, just fill it
up! Children who can write and read can also write messages on strips of paper, or words, and add those
to show through the clear plastic. It makes kind of a collage in a bottle. Cover the top of the lid with a circle
of colored paper or a sticker. Some kids like to label their bottles to express the contents. Use paper, or if
you have stick on labels, those work well too.

Wire On Wood
Materials: wood block, multicolored wires, small nail, slightly smaller in diameter than the wire, hammer, glue
Directions: Use the hammer and nail to make a pattern of holes into the top of the wood block. Insert the
end of a wire into a hole. Add a dot of glue to the end of the wire before inserting it in the hole. Bend, twist,
and shape the wire, leave it poking out, or insert the other end of it into another hole. Add more wires as
desired, poking out of the
holes or twisting them around and attaching them to the other wires. The sculpture can be abstract or can
form something specific like an animal or familiar object.

Other wire sculpture ideas -
Paint the wooden block first.
Also insert wire into sides and edges of the wood block.
Push wires into a Styrofoam block or Styrofoam coffee cup instead of wood.
Sew wire in and through a Styrofoam grocery tray.

"Have it Your Way" Sandwich Collage
Materials: Construction paper, Scrap materials, Glue
Directions: Give the children long rectangular strips of paper on which to build their sandwiches. Have
precut brown construction paper "bun" shapes for them to glue at either end of the strip. Instruct the
children to choose from the scrap materials to fill in the space between the buns, building a sandwich layer
to layer. Some of the materials we have used are ribbon, felt, burlap, crepe paper, yarn, macaroni, and
stickers. The children enjoy using materials for purposes other than the way they were intended and get a
good feel for one meaning of collage.

Cool Effects
Limit the colours offered for collage. For example: Give children a variety of objects of the same colour to
create with. Or try limiting choices to the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) or offer black & white for
contrast. The same idea can be used for shapes. How many things can you find and create with that are
circles or stars? Use your imagination to make Cool Effects!
Visual Art DAZE
c. Marcia Arpin
www.alltheDAZE.com
established July, 1,
2002
Words of Wisdom

"There are painters who transform the sun
to a yellow spot, but there are others who
with the help of their art and their
intelligence, transform a yellow spot into
the sun. "

Pablo
Picasso
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