Explorations in Art

Process art. That's what this week was all about. Process art is "an artistic movement as well as a creative sentiment where the end product of the art and craft is not the principal focus". It was all about the creative process- not to say many of 
the products weren't simply amazing! We got a chance to paint and create with things that are new and different. 

It was also about a lot of really fun books, many of which have been added to our list of favorites.

Beautiful Oops! was the perfect book to start off the week. It shows us how mistakes are an opportunity to make something beautiful. 

This book led us to painting with rubber bands. We had to stretch rubber bands at random around a cake pan. After placing a piece of paper in the pan, we proceeded to paint the rubber bands. Then we grabbed them with our thumb and forefinger (a great workout for our finger and thumb muscles!) and snapped them. Aw Snap! Paint went splashing onto our papers, but sometimes on us and the table. And the chairs. And the magnet board. It splashed on just about anything close by. 

We painted with spinning tops... (another good workout for our finger and thumb muscles)

And who'd have thought a magnet could paint? We dipped metal objects in paint and placed them on a paper plate. Placing a magnet wand underneath the plate, we moved it around and watched the metal objects paint for us!

After reading Dreaming Up, 

we realized that there is a lot of creative art in block building or architecture. We build all of time- with Legos, wooden blocks, magnetic blocks and more. Today, we used lots of wooden loose parts to build with, and we glued them together as we built. Besides the art that took place with this activity, there was so much language that happened.

"Mike"

"Ariel"

"My sister, Ainsley, and her treasure box"

 It's amazing what can happen with a dot...

We read the dot 

and proceeded to find out with corks dipped in paint.

We drew with black sharpies and then accentuated our markings with watercolors. This was process art at its best.

We do a lot of color mixing when we paint. After reading Mix it Up, 

we did just that- we mixed it up! No matter how many times we mix colors, it's like magic when a new color appears!

We play with play dough often. There are so many benefits to this experience. Today, we played with clay. Wow! What a workout for our hand and finger muscles. We used hammers, knives, golf tees, sticks and more to pound, cut, and shape our clay. 

The Day the Crayons Quit 

had us creating a group mural with crayons, keeping in mind the "feelings" of each color:)

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More 

became a new favorite. For obvious reasons, we couldn't paint our bodies like the kid in the book (we'll do it in the summer when we can wash off in the wading pool:) but we traced our hand and arm and painted... 
"There ain't no harm if I paint my arm."
"I just can't stand not to paint my hand."

We had a great time exploring process art. 
The adventure continues...