KidsArt Lessons

Fantasy Cardboard Tower

Save your trash for Junk Architecture!  With a bit of imagination, kids can transform a pile of cereal boxes, egg cartons and cardboard tubes into a castle, a space station or a fantasy tower.  The handmade structure makes a great play station for action figures and dolls.

Paint, foil and stickers decorate this colorful fantasy tower!

Begin by gathering a variety of clean cardboard boxes and tubes.  Juice cartons, pudding boxes, egg cartons, tubes from giftwrap or paper towels al make great building blocks.  Lok for a sturdy sheet of flat cardboard for the base of the tower.

A hot glue gun is the fastest way to assemble the boxes.  There are child-safe models available. We recommend that an adult always works with the young artist, operating the glue gun under their direction. The hot glue gun alows construction to proceed at a rapid pace, as the warm stcky glue sets solid in just a few moments after aplication.  The boxes can also be put together with white glue.  This wil require more patience, as it takes 5 to 10 minutes for white glue to dry.  Again, an adult helper is very handy!

Kids may wish to cut the boxes with scissors, creating doors and windows, trimming pieces to fit.

A coat of paint unifies the structure, covering the various box labels and cardboard surfaces.  This is a fun process, best done outdoors on a sheet of newspaper, using acrylic paint or temera (poster) paint and a 1″ to 2″ wide paintbrush. The Tower pictured above was painted white, then once this initial coat of paint was dry, bring red, green, blue and yellow were added to some surfaces.  Gold stars and colored dot stickers, and some feltpen squiggles, completed the decoration.

Materials: cardboard boxes and tubes, glue (either a hot glue gun used by an adult, or white glue with an adult helper to support boxes as they dry), scissors, assorted colors of acrylic or tempera paint, paintbrush, various stickers.

Time: 1-3 hours

KidsArt Resource: Tempera paint is the most popular medium for art education, and for many reasons. It’s inexpensive, safe for all ages, cleans up easily with water, is fun to use, and lots more.

Night Sky Chalk Drawing

Colored pastel chalks are wonderful on many different kinds of paper - textured charcoal paper, the inside of brown grocery bags, colored construction paper.  Kids will enjoy drawing “Night Sky” pictures on black construction paper.  The lighter colored pastel chalks look wonderful on the dark background.

A highway stretches off across the desert in this night sky drawing.

Materials: Pastel chalks in assorted colors, black construction paper.

Time: 20-30 minutses.

Handy hint: To keep the dusty chalk from rubbing off the finished picture, an adult can take the picture outdoors and spray on a light coat of regular hairspray.

KidsArt Resource: A set of Pastel Chalks is a great investment for childhood art projects.

Watercolor Sparkle

Watercolor paints are easy and fun for kids to use in art classes, at school and at home. Watercolors clean up easily, need just a bit of water and paper, and can be used by kids by themselves, with a minimum of adult supervision.  The kitchen table is a great place for watercolors.

This shining painting was created with watercolors.  The picture began with a black crayon sketch, then the areas were painted with rainbow tones, letting one color flow gently into another.

After the painting dried, we placed the painting in a flat cardboard box with the sides cut down.  Our young artist squeezed a thin line of white glue along some of the crayon ines, then sprinkled silver glitter on top.  The cardboard box kept the glitter contained and helped with clean-up.

Wow - what a fantastic result!

Materials: watercolor paints, a paintbrush, a black crayon, white glue in a squeeze bottle, glitter in a shaker bottle, a cardboard box with the sides cut down.

Time: 20-30 minutes.

KidsArt Resource: The best Watercolor Paints for kids are made by Crayola….great bright colors, and a paintbrush that actually works!

Easy Foam Printmaking for Kids

Plastic foam containers can be recycled into artwork. Just cut a flat section of the thin sheet of foam (square, round, or an irregular shape) and glue it onto a piece of cardboard to add strength.

Let it snow! A foam print by Jessica, printed with black ink on white paper.

Then draw a design into the foam with a ballpoint pen. Press firmly to make a nice impression. Make lines and dots, patterns and decorations. If you include letters, you will have to make them backwards, because your final print will be a mirror image of the design you draw.

Use a brayer to roll a thin layer of printmaking ink or thick tempera paint onto the foam. You want to cover the flat surface, but not the lines you hav drawn into the foam. The lines should stay clean and have no ink or paint in them, so don’t press too hard o use too much paint.

Place a sheet of plain paper on top of the inky foam and press gntly but firmly to transfer the ink onto the paper. Lift the paper off and admire your design. You can print over and over again….make lots of designs and use them as cards or pictures to give to all of your friends.

Materials: Flat foam cartons, scissors, white glue, cardboard for a backing, ballpoint pen, printmaking ink or thick tempera or acrylic pint, a brayer (a little rubber roller used in printmaking - costs less than $10 and is a great tool for kids’ art projects).

Time: 20-25 minutes.

KidsArt Resources: Find more printmaking ideas for children with the KidsArt Printmaking booklet from the KidsArt on-line store.