Summer Art Challenge 2020: Texture

Welcome to the third installment of our Summer Art Challenge.  This week is going to make a mess, but it's going to be a blast. . . no matter how old your kids are! Plus, all the art projects are mom and dad friendly. . . and even babysitter friendly! 

I think I really love these art challenges each week.  It's purposeful time we set aside to do something together and get creative.  Creativity is something that fills my cup. . . I mean, that's pretty much the whole purpose of this little blog (ha ha).  The kids love it. . . even if some days it's hard to pull them away from their books or legos, but we push through and it does all our hearts good.  It's a nice break from our regular routine. 

This week combines a few different projects that explore the world of texture.  Between different types of paper, yarn, random objects, we created some really fun things! 

Texture Castles

We made a mess.  It was Awesome! We used fabric, cardboard, card stock, construction paper, magazine pages, toothpicks, and bubble wrap.  I also pulled out a paper corrugator tool I bought many years ago (Here's one similar).  The kids loved playing with it and adding crimped paper to their art!

We made sand castles and they turned out so cute! 

Laminated Collage

This was such a fun project and anytime I get to pull out our laminator, I am game (I love laminating things. . . it's weird, I know!).  I was inspired by this blog post over at Art Bar.  I didn't have any contact paper on hand and didn't really want to go to the store, so we adapted and went with what he had. . . laminating sheets! It ended up working beautifully! 

I cut out some wrapping paper, grabbed some tissue paper from our wrapping stash, cut some yarn pieces, pulled out a few cupcake liners and brought out the magazines again.  It was so cool to see how my kids did their artwork. 

Ethan did a bridge and Weston did a boat in the water (not shown).  I did the flowers as an example.  Then we did some messy ones. The messy ones ended up stressing my kids a little.  Apparently, my kids struggle with not having order (ha ha).  But, after really pushing them, we came out with some really fun ones!

For this one, we just opened up the laminating sheet and placed our paper scraps where we wanted.  When we were all finished, we carefully closed the sheet and ran it through the laminator.  Easy Peasy!

Mosaic

One of my favorite ways to study texture and collages are mosaics.  This one was really easy because I let them pick out their own design and cut out their own squares.  They even forced their dad to join us for this art project (thankfully, he didn't object and I think he even had fun!).  I love how they all came out! 

These projects were a lot of fun!  There was lots of space for the kids to come up with an idea in their head and make it a reality on paper.  It made a mess. . . but it was an easy clean up! 

Have you been able to carve out space for some art in your home?  I'd love to see!  Post a picture on Instagram or Facebook and tag me in it: #ootrbsummerartchallenge