Prints Charming: Summer Craft Camp for Kids

My July Craft Camps for Kids ages 4 to 8 focused on print-making and interesting ways to make prints onto paper. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we began our sessions together with fingerprint art and bubble wrap prints.  Did you know that bubble wrap painted with yellow paint and then pressed onto a piece of paper looks just like a honeycomb?  Make a little thumbprint bee or two over top of it, and you have a pretty little project!

Here the artists are, painting the bubble wrap with yellow paint...


And here they are beginning to press it to the card to get a print:

Once that was done, they could add thumbprint bees, a fun message (like "Bee happy!" or "You're beeautiful!"), and any other embellishments:





We also made some black thumbprint spiders hanging from their webs (great for Halloween or messages like, "Let's hang out together sometime!"), and then had free time to play with some of the finger- and thumb-print ideas from Ed Emberley's Fingerprint Drawing Book. 

Once the kids got underway with their thumbprinting and drawing, they had such amazing attention, and worked in such silence, only talking to pass ink pad colors around the table to one another.  It was pretty impressive!

We made clay stamps with our own designs for print-making etched into them with toothpicks, but I didn't get any photos while we were working on these.  I didn't think they ended up making very good prints, but the kids all assured me that they liked that part of the workshop.  I'm pretty sure everyone just likes getting their hands on clay!

I also wanted to show them how we can make prints from everyday, and sometimes unexpected, objects, with colorful and pretty  results.  I collected all sorts of circular items from around my house--empty toilet paper rolls, milk bottle lids, Play Doh container lids, electrical parts (you know the little plastic pieces that you tuck the ends of electrical wires into?), small paper cups--anything I could get my hands on that would make a circle print on the paper.  Everyone had a plate of red, blue, and yellow paint, and they "had at it" to make circle prints on their great big pieces of paper. 

It was so much fun that I made my own circle print later that evening, throwing green paint into the mix.

I wanted to make solar prints, cork prints, vegetable prints...I have enough ideas to fill a couple more print-making workshops with no trouble!  I am hoping to find some young people interested in joining me for art-making through the fall.

Girls Just Wanna Have {Fingerprint} Fun!

I have been holding crafting workshops for kids this summer, bringing out the paints and the ink pads and the glue sticks for some pretty carefree fun.  Perhaps there is no better way to get back in touch with my "inner child" than to spend time with a bunch a kids so I can watch them try new things, experiment with materials, and turn projects into their own. 

At two recent print-making workshops for ages 4 to 8, we started the afternoon with some fingerprint fun.  Even when the day was over, I continued making fingerprint picture after fingerprint picture, filling pages and pages with images from Ed Emberley's Fingerprint Drawing Book.

Have you seen this book?  It's basically the Bible of Fingerprint Fun!

When my husband peered over my shoulder at one point to see what I was doing, I claimed that I was making a "resource book" for future crafting workshops.  Really, I was just trying out all the pictures, and having fun!

Emberley shows how to turn simple fingerprints into pictures that demonstrate various emotions.  Here's how my pictures turned out:

In the book, these characters are perfect little circles of color.  Try as I might to just use the very tip of my finger, I ended with generally oval-shaped characters pretty much all of the time.

He has created these little figures called "Bean Buddies," using very basic stick-figure-style additions to create various characters and actions.  Here are some of my figures, based on his book:

He also has pages that have thematic ties, such as At the Pond.... 

Like my turtle family?

Aw, it's Mom and Dad Frog with the little pollywogs!

And a little duck family.

And my edition of In the Garden....

He shows how to turn fingerprints into all kinds of animals....

including birds...

There were some fun ideas for holiday fingerprint designs, which I grouped together on pages of my sketchbook:

And now, from all of these pages, my fingertips have looked pretty much like this for the past few days:

I remember making a little fingerprint mouse turned into a Christmas ornament when I was in kindergarten; I still hang it on my tree every year!  If it's been that long since YOU remember making fingerprint drawings, then I highly recommend taking a walk on the "child side," and having a little playful fun!

 

Summer Craft Camp for Kids!

I've developed two series of Summer Craft Camps for Kids--one for ages 1 to 3, and one for ages 4 to 7, and we had our first workshop for each series this past week.

My husband came home from work early to find me up to the elbows in kids and paint!

I met first with the 4- to 7-year-old crew to play with paint for an hour on a Thursday afternoon.  If you've read my blog for awhile, or know me personally, you may know that I can be a little squeamish about pulling out the paints and risking a nightmare mess in the house.  Somehow, someway, over the years, I seem to have mellowed!  Here I was, inviting children in addition to my own to scoop, pour, drip and dribble paint all over in the name of creative play! 

Yes, I'm a little proud of my evolution.

We made Spin Art by dribbling washable poster paints into a salad spinner and letting it rip.  Amazingly simple and fun!  The best part is inviting the kids to take the lid off the salad spinner and get their first peek at what they've created.

We made Squoosh Art (or Symmetrical Art Prints, if you prefer) by scooping spoonsful of paint onto a folded piece of paper, and then closing, pressing the paper, and re-opening it to see the symmetrical design that results.  We did this on a simple card, and on cut-out shapes, including rocket ships, butterflies, and angels.

Finally, we used all kinds of crazy materials for getting paint onto our papers--toothpicks, q-tips, bubble wrap, feathers, sponge brushes, and plastic gift cards.  The kids clearly had their favorites; one girl delighted in simply pouring her cups of paint onto the paper!

Don't all these supplies make you want to dive right into some paint?!

By the end of our hour together, the kids had some wonderful art to show for themselves.  I think their big smiles show how they felt about our workshop!

The kids display their handiwork at the end of our workshop together.

The next morning, "the littles" came for our first workshop together.  Our theme was Father's Day, and we read a library story book called My Dad.  Then we made musical instruments with chenille stems (you probably know them as pipe cleaners) and jingle bells.  We learned some fun Father's Day songs to the tunes of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Frere Jacques.  Then it was craft table time, where the children decorated golden crowns (made from yellow construction paper) with stickers for Daddy, and made a "stained glass" handprint craft using tissue paper squares and contact paper.

The mommies get a big "thank you" for their help with the little ones during this workshop!  This group needs a little more support to work on their craft projects. One little girl especially loved the song-singing and wasn't so sure about the craft, while a few of the kids were raring to get to craft time while I was reading the story.  Stickers are pretty much a universal hit with this age group!

Overall, I am so pleased with the first sessions of my Summer Craft Camp for Kids, and am looking forward to our next workshops in July.  It's very rewarding to share my love for art and crafting with a new generation of creative spirits!