Observational Drawing for Children

My daughter is good at drawing cartoon images.  But, realistic drawing is her recent obsession.  We watched several videos on realistic drawing. It didn’t help her much. I read the article of Dr.Marvin Bartel – ‘Teaching Observation Drawing to Young Children’ recently.  He has written the importance of observation art, how to teach kids to practice drawing effectively, and to help them draw more realistically. 

In observational drawing, children observe the color, shapes, pattern and shadows of the object, and draw what they see.  They notice the details and practice drawing.  This observation skill will surely help them improving concentration and seeing things in different perspectives.

Here are some art works of my little one.

Lady's Finger Printing

Making art work using lady’s finger printing is not new.  But, it is one of the interesting works for any child. Here is some of what we did with lady’s finger.  Along with lady’s finger, we used curry leaves and Neem leaves for making the plants.

Fun face Collages

We had lot of fun this week end.  We made fun face collages using magazine cuttings.

I cut the parts of face like eyes, ear and nose from magazine pictures and started making fun collages by sticking the face parts in a paper.

This art costs nothing. All you need is some old magazines , glue and imagination. It’s time to play and laugh with your kids.

At the end of each work we laughed a lot and my hubby who was sitting before the system saw all the fun we had and joined with us.

For toddlers, it will be a fun activity to learn the parts of face and for older kids it will be a creative art work. 

Featured in: http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2015/01/tot-school-gathering-place-week-107/

Cardboard Roll dolls

I have seen many toilet paper roll dolls in internet and was very much inspired by those projects.  So, I too wanted to do some recycled crafts and we made some cardboard dolls this week. These are really easy and fun to make.  

I used a base cardboard tube of thread rolls.Here is a step by step tutorial

Here is our cardboard tube Rapunzel

Introducing My little Artist

I love to do art and craft works and I always encourage my little one in such activities. These are some of our works with leaves, pencil shavings and other materials.  But, this time i want to display some of  the pencil sketches and other art works of my  little one  .

This is my personal favorite. Mom and Daughter

Sun and Star(drawn on the day we had ' space study')

A selfie

Dodo and a rabbit

Panda

Rose

 Mosquitoes!!!

 Horse!!!

Fairies

 Egg shell painting (Love those eyes) 

Leaf Art

Arts and crafts are very important for child development.  Kids create something new using their imagination and it improves their cognitive skills. Hence, I always encourage my child in such activities.

Leaf art is one of my favorite arts and I thought of creating some leaf animals and birds with my little one.  The following are some of what we created.  

We used fresh leaves and it began to shrink after few hours.  Hence, press the leaves in books for few days and then use it for better results.

Less Messy Painting activities

Painting is the messy play what children love.  Whenever my child takes the paint and brush, I told her at least thrice not to paint anything on the wall. The children’s tendency to paint on the wall is irresistible.   So, I am always searching for some alternative painting methods which could also help improving the eye hand coordination. Here are those less messy, easy to clean painting activities for kids(For mom's too)

Marble painting:

Marble painting is one of the easy craft what any child can do and its best to keep child inside the home during winter or rainy days.  Just take a tray, put a paper that fit in to it.  Put few drops of water color (colors of your choice) and then marbles.  Tilt the tray to move the marbles here and there in the tray.  The final outcome will surely be unique and a master piece.

Finally, the masterpiece ...

Salt painting:

Salt painting is another great way of learning color mixing. In a white paper draw a picture ,trace it using glue and apply table salt over it.  Now, using ink filler or eye dropper, gently drop the water colors.  The color spreads, mixes with the adjacent colors and creates new colors with excellent textures. 

Magnetic Painting:

Children love to play with magnets for sure. Hence, magnetic painting will be the double treat for them.  Put few drops of various colors on a thick sheet and place the paper clips or safety pins in the tray. By moving the magnet under the sheet, move the safety pin in all the directions of the sheet.  It’s really fun to watch the safety pin jump and roll over when the magnet is moved.