Summary: Happy April Art Smart Parents! This week is spring break for my kids. As usual, the break is filled with loads of activities at the beginning of the week, but by midweek, the "B" word is uttered. Boredom has set in... Over spring break, I like to rearrange my furniture and artwork to bring new perspective to my life. The April change-up seems to be a yearly occurrence not only at home, but at my performing arts school as well. I like to rearrange artwork, move the furniture, and simply change things around to create a spruced up feeling. This rearranging often leads to the creation of new artwork. In the past, I've created a number of large pieces (8 feet) from bold fabrics over wooden frames. This year, my girls have dubbed April the month of Artwork. To commemorate April Artwork, we created potato paintings. Yes, we played with our food and created stampers out of potatoes. If you search up potato paintings on any search engine, you'll see loads of examples. The one I liked best was found at ohhappyday.com. While our prints were not nearly as big or as precise, we had a fun couple of hours letting our imaginations run free. Letting your kids use their imaginations to create artwork engages their multiple intelligences and reinforces that there's no one right way to do anything - a thought that seems to escape traditional education. Here are the steps we took to create our potato art masterpieces: Select potatoes for the project Slice potatoes in half Create shapes on the cut ends of the potatoes using an knife or blade (we covered ours in tape to make handing a bit easier) Choose your acrylic paint colors Dip potato in paint and apply to paper (we used glossy for ease of erasing) Decide upon a design or let your imagination guide the process Show off your new artwork Hang the artwork to create a change of scenery in YOUR house. I wish you an awesome week of creating your potato art masterpieces and look forward to hearing your comments on your changes in perspective! Until next week, happy creating!
