Art Activities

Pull String Art

Pull String Art is a super easy art activity the kids love. All you need are any type of liquid paint (acrylic, tempera, or watercolor), yarn, cup, and paper. The first step is to pour your paint into the cup. Dip your yarn into the paint, leaving about two inches hanging over the edge to hold onto place. Fold your paper in half, then place your coated yarn onto one half of the paper. When placing your yarn, you can arrange it in swirls, loops, or squiggles designs. Once your yarn is settled, fold the other half over the coated yarn. Then the final step, place your hand firmly over the paper and slowly pull the yarn and check out the results of your pulled string art. This is a great activity I love to use when teaching symmetry and abstract art. 

If you would like a step by step tutorial with pictures, you can visit Ana's page: How to Do the Classic Pulled String Art Project

Marbleized Artwork  

This art activity is one of my favorites to do at the beginning of the school year and is always a great hit with the kids! Materials you will need include:

• Shaving cream
• food coloring
• thick paper (card stock, acrylic, or watercolor paper)
• baking sheets
• ruler
• skewer, chopsticks, fork, popsicle sticks for swirling. 

To begin, just spray and spread the shaving cream onto the baking sheet. Then place a few drops of food coloring onto the shaving cream. It's best to use between two to three colors. Now, take your utensil for swirling and start making designs. Once you are happy with your design, carefully place your paper onto the design and gently press the paper onto the surface. Then carefully lift your paper and scrape the shaving cream off your paper with a sturdy straight edge object, like a ruler. And you now have beautiful marbleized paper! I love using paper cutouts for these art activities, like hearts, eggs, handprints. It makes great art projects for any holiday season. 

Below is a cool video showing how easy and fun this activity is. 

Painting with a salad spinner

This is an easy art activity the kids have a lot of fun with. All you need is a salad spinner, acrylic paint, and paper plate, or any type of paper. Place your paper or paper plate into the salad spinner. Make sure your paper plate is close to the same size as the bottom of the salad spinner. Squeeze several colors of paint onto your paper. When you are happy with the amount of paint you have applied, seal your salad spinner and start spinning! This is the kids' favorite part. We usually have a competition for who can spin it the fastest. Once you get it going for a while, release the handle and let it slowly come to a stop. Now just open the lid and your surprise artwork is ready for you!