Kids Art Club Workshops – symmetry printing and 3-D beetles

Being inspired by the incredible patterns and forms of beetles, butterflies, moths and stick insects from around the world, the children started on making beautiful symmetry prints using acrylic paints as well as drawing with oil pastels. They spent an entire session just playing with the paints, building up layers of textures and colours on A3, A4, A5 and A6 pieces of good quality thick art paper which would be strong enough for constructing but still easy enough to fold and cut. I don’t like to give kids rubbishy art materials just because they are young! I want them to feel that their artwork deserves quality ingredients.

On week 2 they cut their papers and constructed some amazing creatures, wild enough to rival nature! This demanded some real engineering skills and I was so impressed by how they all helped each other and shared their ideas around for making them 3-D. I had shown them a few ways to turn a flat surface into 3-D one but actually they invesnted their own ways too! Have a look at some of their creatures which wouldn’t look out of place in an undisturbed jungle… 

Kids Art Workshops – papier mache cacti

For this project, we initially looked at the amazing wierd and wonderful sculptures by Chiaozza: https://www.eternitystew.com/ 

I also took in a selection of my own cacti and succulents for the kids to draw, to get their imaginations rolling and give inspiration for more shapes and forms. They then designed what they wanted to create in papier mache and cardboard, and set to with the papier mache! In total this turned into a 3 week project, as some of the designs were wonderfully ambitious – they really pushed themselves which was great to see!

The forms were constructed over wooden skewers which were then stuck into holes in wooden blocks. 

You can see the results, though the photographs really don’t do them justice!

Kids art club workshops South Devon holidays after school

 

Spacefruit Art Club Workshops

I’ve spent the past year running Art Clubs to mostly Key Stage 2 children in 2 of my local primary schools.

It has been some of the most enjoyable and rewarding work I have ever done!

Some art projects have included Papier Mache cacti, dice rolling abstract mixed media art game, incredible 3-D beetles made from wonderful decorated card which the printed themselves, playing with making stamps and decorating and covering their own small sketch book, amazing mini puppet theatres made from cardboard boxes, and clay animals.

It was hard to take photos when we were all so busy and right in the moment but I’ve taken a few. I shall write individual posts about each project. I am now planning some children’s art workshops for after Easter and over the summer holidays around South Hams Devon, perfect for your creative children and maybe some adult workshops too! To hear more about these, please add your name to the contact me page and leave a message in the box so I know that you’re interested in workshops.