Category: Studio Hours
Ellsworth Kelly Desk Organizers
For this project, we’re taking American painter and printmaker Ellsworth Kelly as our inspiration
#TryThis Projects for Home
Let’s help you keep that desk free of coffee rings. Coasters are an easy, useful project for any part of the home.
Try This: Kintsukuroi
Repairs can be beautiful if you try this Japanese traditional craft.
Try This: Lanterns
Decorative arts, unlike sculptures, are meant to be useful and beautiful. These lantern projects are a perfect way to keep your creative output close by.
Paint without a Brush
What do you need? Compile as many non-paintbrush tools as you can. Add paper, watercolors, and water. You can also compile as many non-paper surfaces to paint on. Add brushes, watercolors, and water. Try this? Painting without a brush can help you explore abstract painting. You can get a better feel for pattern and texture.
Try This: Abstract Sculptures
Challenge yourself to turn regular household materials into a sculpture. Make something you find beautiful. What do you need? Pick just one media, like a plastic folder. Try this? Use your imagination to manipulate it to create a 3-D form. Or, put together only two forms, like paper straws and pipe cleaners. As you work, think about how your sculpture looks from all angles. Pick up your sculpture so you look at the forms from a different angle.
Try This: Animal Collages
Animals are a perennial source of inspiration. While drawing is one way to depict creatures, collage or sculpture can expand your creativity. What do you need? Scissors, glue, paper, and/or cardboard. Try this? Cut shapes from paper and/or cardboard. Challenge yourself to create an abstracted figure from these pieces. Glue your shapes onto a background. You can add a few details with a marker at the end.
Try This: Alternative Books
Bookmaking can be easy. Handmade books are perfect for pocket sketchbooks. Try This? This book is one of the easiest books to make. You need paper, scissors, and yarn. You can use a ruler to make you work neat and even. As with most books, you trim the pages to size, prepare for binding, and then bind the pages together. You can add panache to your books by using interesting colors for the yarn binding, for the cover, and for the paper.
Try This: Bathtub Snow Graffiti
By Amanda Crowe, Assistant Educator Follow-up to “Winter Wonderland” Playdate, Thursday, February 6, 2014 When ice storms block your children from going outside, you can still give them the opportunity to be spontaneous and creative with nature by bringing the outside in. Snow. One of the most elemental, memorable art mediums from your childhood. Recreate those memories for your little ones by making your bathtub the canvas! With easy clean up and minimal effort, your child can be the bathtub graffiti artist of your household.
Guided Visualization for Children, or How to Take a Trip with Your Kids Without Leaving Home
Follow-up to “Sunshine Playdate,” Thursday, January 9, 2014 Grown-ups and children alike are affected by the weather in Ohio. Gray, cold days can take hold of anyone’s moods and when it’s too cold to go outside for days on end, your child’s abundant energy needs an outlet! Creative visualization is one way to take a trip while enjoying the warmth of your pajamas! Let your child be the captain as their imaginations drift away by using simple storytelling and props on a fun, guided journey