3 Super Easy Art Projects You Can Do At Home (For Cheap!)
2:00 AMI am so excited that it is finally summer. Summer means time for me to get outside with my kids and catch up on all the activities we've had on our list all year.
Below, you will find three easy art lesson videos that you can do at home without a lot of expense. While these are easy and cheap art lessons, each has a lot of educational, fine motor, and artistic value for kids. I'll explain that as well.
1- Snazzy Snail from Party in the Art Room
QUALITY: While this lesson starts with a basic step-by-step to draw the shapes of the snail, there is an open-ended element with the addition of patterns. Patterns and repetition are important concepts in visual art. Plus, the repetition builds fine motor skills.
EASY: The snail is composed of simple shapes. However, the spiral and the addition of patterns is just challenging enough to keep young artists engaged.
INEXPENSIVE: All you need for this lesson is a pencil, a piece of paper, and some kind of markers, crayons, or colored pencils. If you want to take it up a notch, use a permanent marker to outline the drawing and paint it!
BONUS: This video lesson is fun by itself, but if you are wanting to add some extra language activities that connect to the art you should definitely check out the full product from Party in the Art Room.
2- Cubist Butterfly
QUALITY: Cubism was a 20th century style of art-making and art movement. This lesson is a good introduction even though the video doesn't quite teach about Cubism. If you are looking for more information on Cubism, Ducksters has a really quick read with very common Cubist images. Learning about art movements and styles can expand worldview for children.
EASY: Much like the Snazzy Snail, this lesson has a step-by-step drawing lesson in the beginning. Encourage your kids to use their own choice of colors for the shapes. Challenge them just a bit by having them use warm colors for the butterfly and cool colors for everything else. They can also easily add patterns to the shapes, similar to the patterns from the Snazzy Snail lesson.
INEXPENSIVE: Again, all you need to create this work of art are basic materials. A pencil, a piece of paper, and something to add color with would suffice. However, you can always jazz it up with things like glitter glue and sequins.
3- Op Art
QUALITY: Op Art is a style of art that uses optical illusions. Many optical illusions have scientific or mathematic elements to them that can be explored as kids learn more about the subject matter. Because creating this work requires straight lines, students can use a ruler and practice manipulating it (which can sometimes be hard for student when they are learning about measurement). Working with straight lines builds fine motor skills.
EASY: The teacher in this video goes step-by-step to explain how to create the illusion, which is key because students have all the information they need to be successful. Similar to the other lessons, you could probably let your child create this without a lot of help. It is really that easy!
INEXPENSIVE: The video uses paper, a black Sharpie, and crayons. That is really all you need. Don't have a Sharpie? Any permanent marker will do. Don't have any permanent markers, just use any kind of marker you can find. Can't find any markers? Use a black crayon.
Hope you enjoy creating with your kiddos! While you are working with your own children on these art projects, consider how you might be able to use this with your students next year! Let us know what you come up with.
-Amanda
by Amanda Koonlaba, Ed.S.
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