A while back my daughter and I had fun experimenting with yarn and canvas to create a few interesting pieces of abstract resist art. I stumbled across those pieces the other day and remembered how much fun they were to make. Looking at them, gave me idea. I love birch trees and thought that this technique might work well for making birch tree landscape paintings. With a little help from my little girl, we played around with this method. We love the results and are excited about how simple and pretty these are. 
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"artist inspired"
Pointillism Fall Leaf Art
Pointillism is a fun painting technique that is also great for working on fine motor skills.
My little girl’s love for the great artists keeps growing and growing. I for one am overjoyed. I love that my five year old is so eager to learn everything that she can about them. Her newest interest is George Seurat and his style of painting. Pointillism is an impressionist style of painting using small dots instead of brush strokes.
Black Glue and Watercolor Picasso Portraits
My daughter and I have been learning a lot about the famous artists together these past few months. She has become fascinated by them. She has been attending art camp this week. On her first day, she came home with a clay Picasso portrait and a lot of new knowledge about the famous artist. She drew a bunch of Picasso inspired portraits that evening. They were wonderful. Her drawings inspired these Picasso portraits.
Yarn Art With Watercolors
These yarn art pieces are inspired by the book ‘Art & Max’.
We love finding inspiration for arts and craft projects from the books that we read. One of our new favorites is ‘Art & Max‘ (affiliate link). It is a wonderful book about two lizards. One is an artist and the other is an aspiring artist. When Arthur (Art) suggests that Max paint him, things quickly get colorful and then begin to slowly unravel. The lines and the colors in the book inspired these yarn art creations.
11 Beautiful Kid’s Art For Winter and Christmas
Winter and Christmas are a beautiful and magical time. The snow falling, the twinkling lights from a Christmas tree and even a snowy roof top are great creative inspiration for artists, young and old. My little one and I have greatly enjoyed creating artwork for the season. We have used watercolors, acrylics, tissue paper and newspaper. Here is a collection of some of our favorite art projects. Click on the titles to follow the links to the full tutorials.
9 Flower Arts & Crafts Projects For Kids
Footprint Works Of Art
Over the past couple of months, I have been enjoying recreating famous paintings with the use of my daughter’s footprints. It all started because I wanted to make a black cat craft for Halloween. The cat reminded me of the famous poster art “Le Chat Noir”.
From that one footprint craft, I could not stop. I felt inspired to turn my daughter’s little feet into great works of art.
Next we moved on to Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’
This one had my daughter puzzled. “Why is he screaming so much, mama?”
I am not quite sure.
‘The Son Of Man’ aka The Man in the Bowler Hat by René Magritte always reminds me of the movie The Thomas Crown Affair.
More questions…”Why does he have an apple on his face?”
James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s ‘Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1’, more commonly known as Whistler’s Mother was a fun one to make.
‘Starry Night’ by Vincent Van Gogh fascinated my daughter. She watched me paint in the swirls and asked if she could make a ‘Starry Night’ too. She has since made her own recreations several times.
I added two more to my collection this weekend.
On Saturday, I made a footprint art inspired by Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Old Guitarist’.
My husband really liked this one. I was pretty excited at how it came out too. I only needed 3 colors for this one, so it was less messy than my others.
Last but not least, was my toughest challenge. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but tackling a Seurat inspired ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, was a bit more than I bargained for. It is no wonder it took Seurat 2 years to paint his masterpiece. My much much much smaller footprint version was no Sunday afternoon walk in the park, but we finished it. Phew!! Can you even spot the footprint in all of those spots?
These were all a ton of fun to make & I cannot wait to display my daughter’s feet throughout the house.
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Shape Inspiration Drawings
My daughter and I sort of have a set evening routine. I come home from work, we eat supper together as a family, we talk about our days & then my little girl and I head to the craft bin. Some nights she wants to craft with me, on others, she wants to craft on her own & some days, she just wants to draw.
Last night, she pulled out some old scraps from a cupcake liner that we had cut up for a craft. She looked at the liner for a minute & then said to me “Mama, this looks like a tutu. Let’s make a girl out of this.” She glued it down on a piece of paper & I took some of the other remnants and made a bow with it and placed it where a head might be. Mai squealed & took the paper & began drawing her girl. She drew in the face, the hair, legs & high-heeled shoes, like mommy has.
She was very excited when she was done.
This simple activity sparked me to want to try more shapes and see what she did with them.
I glued down a triangle & a rectangle. In my mind, when I envisioned this, I pictured her creating a house. Her perception of these shapes was different from my own.
I watched her fascinated, as I realized that she was creating a well.
It is amazing to watch a young mind work.
Next, I gave her two circles.
She drew up a storm on this one.
Mai offered me a very detailed description of what was happening in her drawing. This was a garbage truck & all the garbage guys we going to work.
The last one that we made was just 2 yellow cupcake liners glued diagonal from one another.
Mai saw a baby chick in this one.
Her cute craft & imagination inspired mommy to make a cupcake liner chick of her own.
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The Benefits Of Arts & Crafts For Children
Art & crafting have always been a huge part of my life. I was brought up in a family of artists. All of my aunts and uncles drew, painted or created works of art in one way or another. When my daughter was born, I hoped that she would share in this passion. When she had barely turned 1, I introduced her to finger paints & she painted her first picture.
From that day forward, she has not stopped creating. I am teased often for the emphasis I put on arts & crafts. There is hardly an inch of our home that is not covered with a craft project or drawing made by my daughter & there is rarely I day that goes by without her picking up a paintbrush or crayons. The truth is my daughter has learned so much from every craft made & every picture drawn.
Learning about various textures, the combination of shapes & how to mix & blend colors are just a few of the things that art has taught her. There are many other benefits.
It teaches focus & concentration. Each project keeps her engaged & shows her the process & steps that it takes to turn a blank canvas or object into something beautiful.
It helps develop a strong attention to detail. Whether she is making sure that her butterfly has an antennae or adding a trail of slime to the bottom of a snail, she observes & recognizes the details in everyday things.
It boosts creativity & imagination. We have experimented with several different types of craft materials over the years. In the beginning, I would come up with an idea for a project & show her what to do. Now at only 3 years old, my daughter takes the lead. One day she asked me for pieces of an egg carton. Since we usually have them readily available for crafts, I obliged & handed her pieces of one. With a few random pieces in hand, she told me that she was going to make a tutu with legs & red high heeled shoes. I was unsure of how she was going to accomplish this, but I watched as she carefully painted each piece & listened to her as she told me all about her girl in the tutu. When she was done, she proudly assembled her pieces. She was not the only one that was proud.
Encourage your children to express themselves. Remember art is all about expression. If they want to paint a purple sun, let them. Allow them the freedom to create & sit back and enjoy the ride.
I was inspired by Invaluable.com and asked to write about youth art. Invaluable is an advocate for all forms of artwork, whether it be children’s paintings or classic fine art.
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It’s A Play Dough World
I am currently living in a Play-Doh world. My living room is filled with containers & baggies filled with dough. Most containers are filled with multi-colored globs of dough that have been blended and smashed together. There are cutting tools, stamps & dough presses covering our tables & floors. It is easy to say that my daughter is obsessed with Play-Doh. Her birthday this year was even Play-Doh themed.
There is a kid’s television show that we will watch together called ‘Art & Music’. It is a lovely show that shows different mediums of art put to music. On every episode there is a segment called Clay World. They create amazing scenes & people right before your eyes. This is my daughter’s favorite part of the show. She oohs & aahs over their creations & tries to recreate them. I speak about inspiration often & it seems that even the youngest of artists get inspired.
Last night she asked me if we could make a Play-Doh village together. How could I say no to that?
We started with a pond laid out on a piece of poster board.
Mai helped me form rocks to place around the pond.
We rolled out a strip of mismatched green & sliced out grass blades.
I worked the grass around the pond and rocks.
I formed a walkway.
Mai wanted to make ducks for the pond. She formed one with a cookie cutter. She got upset once she realized that it could not stand up in the pond.
I showed her how to make a little duck that could float in the pond. She was a quick learn & made several little ducks to put in the pond.
We added a walkway to our pond & then pressed green dough around to form more grass.
Mai helped me press & work some brown dough around the side to form dirt.
We added an additional path to the side & a stream.
Mai made us a banana boat to put in our stream. That’s me in the orange. Mai is driving the boat of course & daddy & her cousin Sebby are in tow. I love that little girl’s imagination. Before she went to bed last night, she asked to add a zoo to our park. “Tomorrow baby girl.” I really am living in a Play-doh world.
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