Art Projects for Children

By J.C. Lewis

Arts and crafts are a basic part of childhood. Finding art projects kids love is as easy as opening a drawer or a pantry and using what you find. Your kids will love to display their masterpieces!

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By J.C. Lewis

Children love to create their own artwork with paint, crayons, pencils, glue and any other art supplies they find. With a few basic instructions and a little supervision, their natural creativity will enable them to create wonderful works of art. Art projects can be more fun for children when they learn something new and are able to take a basic idea and make it their own.Potato StampingEven small children can enjoy making art with potato stamps. An adult will need to cut a potato in half, but children can draw the images for their stamps on the cut surfaces with a marker or tell you what shape they want. Carve the shape out of the potato to create a stamp. Simple, bold shapes–triangles, circles, stars, hearts–work best. Children can experiment with dipping the stamps into paint, painting the stamp surfaces directly with a brush and combining different shapes and colors to make their own art. The potato stamps can be washed, refrigerated and reused for a few days and have the advantage of being cheap and entirely customizable.ButterflyOn a piece of paper either draw the basic outline of a butterfly for a child or let him draw it himself. You will need a drinking straw and paints that have been thinned with water to a runny consistency. Either cover one half of the butterfly with another piece of paper or instruct the child to paint only one side of the butterfly. When the paint is applied to the paper, it will be runny enough to be blown in different directions with the drinking straw to create abstract shapes. When the painting is finished but still wet, uncover the other half of the butterfly and fold the paper in half along the butterfly’s body. Press the sides of the paper together; when you unfold it, the butterfly will have symmetrical wings. This project is messy and fun and teaches children about symmetry.”Batik” PaintingTrim the wick of a long, thin white candle, and sharpen one end to a point with a knife. Give the candle and a piece of plain paper to the child for her to draw “invisible” pictures with. Water down some paint so that it has a runny consistency. When the child brushes the paint over the paper, her painting will appear as the wax residue resists the runny paint. Children learn about the properties of wax and water and the art of batik, and enjoy revealing their previously invisible works of art.FireworksTo make a fireworks picture, you need colored pencils, a black wax crayon and a dried-up ball point pen or blunt pencil. Children can color pieces of paper with bright colored pencils any way they want to: they can scribble all over it, draw stripes or zigzags or make blocks of different colors. When the children’s pages are covered, with no gaps, they need to cover the whole surface with the black wax crayon, hiding their designs. The children need to press the crayons hard enough to cover the pencil artwork entirely so that it cannot be seen. When the pages are black, it is time to draw the fireworks (or any other design). The children will use the blunt pencil or pen to scratch the surface of the black wax with lines and stars resembling fireworks in the sky. The black wax is scraped away to reveal the colors underneath and give the effect of brightly colored fireworks exploding in the dark night sky.Resourcesreference200 Craft Projects Made Easy; Simona Hill; 2006

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