Creatures - Fun Easy Symmetry Art

As a last minute make a pretty Valentine project I thought we could cut hearts out of paper and smush paint along the fold, open it up and have a psychedelic design. Since we had to let the acrylic paint dry, we made a second one where the students got to choose the colors they wanted in the painting. We opened them up to see a design created that later you can turn into a creature or whatever you see in the paint. This is such an easy project. Its messy as the paint oozes out of the paper when you fold it. Also, the paint sticks to the paper. However it teaches symmetry and using creativity to create something out of the paint blob. What creatures do you see in these examples?? I see a bee, a moth, an ice cream cone and a globe.
An article about the method and other examples of symmetry in art can be found at Bright Hub.
Here is the link to the Colorful Art Using Symmetry article.

Valentines Day Watercolor Project - 3 Styles

Painting a watercolor background in purples and pinks is the start of this project. Once the background is wet, you can use heart blocks wrapped in tissue to blot up heart shapes in the background. These are filled in with painted Valentines messages.
The background can also be stamped with white acrylic stamped hearts. These are nice and easy to do. Thirdly, you can cut out hearts from the background and paste them onto a watercolor background. Grade 1's can do this.

You can also sketch hearts on a smaller watercolor paper and then paint each heart in with 2 colors of watercolor such as yellow and red. This makes a nice bouquet of hearts. 3 projects, all easy to do!

All three ways of doing this have been written at Art from the Heart: Watercolor Valentines Day Art Project
Which one do you like doing the best???

Watercolor Winter Projects - Fun and Easy

Watercolors can create excellent and easy art. In grade 4 we created a winter scence using blues and purples for the sky, greys for the snow and fisnished with white snow on grey trees.
See the article called Winter Watercolor Landscapes Lesson.
Also in grade 4 we used a frosted window scene for a smaller 4 by 6 watercolor. Using grey and pink sky colors, we also painted in a branch and a window sill. The glass looks frosty by adding glitter to the painting after its dry. Try this one as its a nice effect. Use plastic to make crinkles and and lines in the wet paint to help draw the frost on later. See the article Winter Watercolor Window Art at Bright Hub for all the steps, pictures, hints and tips.