Make a Picture Like Eric Carle ~ Kids Can Create a Picture Collage

The illustrations in The Very Hungry Caterpillar seem to capture the attention of almost every young child.

Simple yet complex, they are colorful and eye-catching.

Recreating the look is fun and easy for any child who is old enough to use a pair of scissors.

What you'll need:

Several sheets of white paper

One sheet of thicker white paper or board

Watercolor paints or markers

Paint brushes

White glue

Scissors

First, decide what you are going to draw. Feel free to copy my bears, but if you want to draw mice, or bugs, or your family you can.

Then paint several colors of watercolor on the regular paper. The colors can overlap, they can be in patterns, white areas are fine...basically you can't make a mistake. 

To give the colors even more texture, after the first layer dries choose a different color and make lines or dots. Crinkling up another small sheet of paper or paper towel and dipping it in the paint will create nice textures when softly touched on top of another color.

Using your paintbrush for texture is fun too. When the paint is almost used up on the brush it feels a bit dry and breaks up into sections. Without wetting the brush, dip it into a color and lightly go over another color on the page for a cool lined effect.

I did one page of my first layer of paint in browns and blacks because I wanted to make some trees. To get the spots, dip the brush in black paint, then brush your finger so the paint is kind of flicked off onto the paper. If your brush is too soft, hold the brush over the paper and lightly tap the finger of your other hand so little speckles drop off onto your page. (This method can be a bit messier.)

After your pages have dried, begin cutting shapes.

For my picture, I needed three ovals, three circles, for the bears heads and bodies, three very long rectangles for tree trunks in brown, several shorty skinny rectangles for tree branches, and many leaves cut out from all the different colors I painted. I also made six little arms, six little legs, and six little ears, and one big oval in green that will be a patch of grass. I also cut out a butterfly from some of the scraps and some very long curved triangles for grass. (The butterfly is made from two B shapes.)

Please feel free to make your trees, leaves and bears ANY color you like. Don't feel limited to the edges of the paper--go out of the lines!

Now start to glue the pieces you cut any way you like. You can see within the cut out pieces how the white spaces, speckles, squiggles, and paint splashes all add to the texture and charm of the picture. You can copy mine or create your own. I hope I see some mice, cats, dogs, wolves, monkeys, or anything else you can think of.

Send me any of your completed work--I'd love to show it off here!

Have fun!!

xo

Kid Magic

When we are young almost everything we experience is touched with a bit of magic.

The first-ness of our moments adds wonder and beauty to the most simple things. Glimpses of our day, like a butterfly gliding through our wisteria, feel as if they are visited by a Disney fairy godmother when we are little.

A walk through grandpa's garden is Narnia to the preschool set, and more rich and poignant than any CGI filled movie you could pay for.

But the lives of our little ones are chock-full of busy-ness. From homework in kindergarten to pee wee sports practice, our kid's lives are hectic. 

Reading and art allow children to slow down, to do something calming and centering. Unbeknownst to them, while they are munching along with Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar or roaring with the terrible beasts in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, they are expanding their imaginations and increasing their literacy skills.

If they can't read yet themselves, they sit with a loved one, experiencing closeness and developing an ability for meaningful discussions.

When given a paint brush and a blank canvas, children are allowed to expand their consciousness and develop creative and open-minded thinking. It awakens their senses and helps with problem solving skills. You do not have to tell them art is timeless, they delve into the moment and are somehow connected with the self-expression that has been part of humanity since the dawn of time. 

Appreciation of art and literature starts young, and happily they have no idea they are learning. Children have the special ability to have nothing attached to what they are doing--they are creating art or reading simply because they love it. There is no agenda attached to their creativity. They go with the flow, a gift that Picasso spoke about when he said "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist as we grow up." The magic in their completely un-self-conscious creativity allows them to be wholly in the moment, something we as adults can have a hard time with.

Our kids grow up so fast. Our days are filled with bills, cleaning, cooking, and a whole lot of reality. We are focused on test-taking in school and a very one sided IQ score that is probably decent at grading one's general knowledge base.

But what about creativity? What about those kids who are notoriously considered square pegs simply because the current system disallows for square holes?

The magic of childhood is lovely, and it would be nice to stretch at least some of that Abracadabra into our adult lives. 

Reading and art are two examples of wizardry that seamlessly moves with us as we grow. Along with the obvious advantages of reading to kids when they are young and allowing them to create unguided art, these bewitching gifts stick--they are endless presents of love that happily never have to end.

I'd love to know of any books or forms of art you loved as a child, and what made them special to you.

xo Dea

Make a FINGERPRINT MATERPIECE!

Today is a great day to get out the paints and make a beautiful picture with FINGERPRINTS!

All you need is watercolor or acrylic paint--and fingers :) Just dip you finger into the paint and press onto paper. You can do just one or dozens. Make bugs, animals, monsters, or anything else you can dream of.

Contact me when you are done and I will post them HERE.

HAVE FUN!!

Featured at the Eric Carle Museum of Storybook Art

Being featured at The Eric Carle Museum of Storybook Art was a very proud day. David Rowinski, author of The Open Pillow and I were guests for Special Story Day--David read the book and I did an art lesson. 

We signed the book of artists that had been featured there in the past--our names are now with Tomie DePaolo, Eric Carle, and many others. We were thrilled.

Please visit the Eric Carle Museum page: http://www.carlemuseum.org/

Scroll to bottom of page to see my illustrations in The Open Pillow, a children's book written by David Rowinski, that was featured at the museum last August:  http://www.carlemuseum.org/Programs_Events/Upcoming/#E1679



Even GROWN-UPS Love to Color!




The Easter season is upon us!

Chocolate bunnies, chicks, Peeps, jelly beans and especially colored eggs made the holiday very exciting for us as kids.

I had, and STILL have, an affinity for the egg coloring. Putting the fizzy little concentrated color tablet in the cup of vinegar, boiling the eggs, and drawing on the eggs with a white crayon to block out certain areas while the eggs cool still makes me happy. I could make the eggs look any way I chose--and they were usually NOT your run-of-the-mill Easter images. Funny faces, space-scapes, or little monsters were more par for the course.

Nothing has changed much--I still color eggs, but now I also have a COLORING BOOK with eggs YOU and YOUR CHILDREN can color.

Francine and the Super Spy Bunny Super Coloring Book is also a story about a candy loving girl who gets all her Easter wishes granted by a mysterious laser-eyed bunny. Is the Easter Bunny a robot?? Color your way to the truth!! HAPPY COLORING! :)

Please join our SPY BUNNY COLORING GROUP and post your child's art from SPY BUNNY! Kids LOVE to see their masterpieces displayed in our Facebook Museum :)  Click here to enter and win a copy of the upcoming coloring book, PENELOPE'S GARDEN.  https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/478108415587906/

No purchase necessary to enter. Email penelopecrowe@hotmail.com for a free coloring page for entry.