DIY Masking Tape Paintings

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope you are having a great day spending time with your friends and loved ones. This past weekend I got to spend the afternoon being artsy with my nephew.

We gathered up some small canvases, masking tape and craft paint to create a fun Valentine’s gift for his parents, and a piece for himself.

We decided to practice first making a “C” for Corwin and an “I” for Ian. I cut the masking tape to piece together the letters and smoothed them to the canvases. I showed Corwin how to blend the different colors together to cover the canvas, and he had a great time creating new hues.

When they dried we had fun taking off the tape to reveal our creations. I then wrote “Love” with the tape and Corwin went about painting that canvas for his gift.

This was a fun and easy project for the both of us, and the possibilities with masking tape are endless. I hope get the chance to create something fun with someone you love this week!

Beautiful Egg Art

This past week at school my second graders have been learning about the art of Ukrainian Pysanky Eggs. After talking to them about he process and showing them a few examples we watched this video together.

I think we were all mesmerized by Father Paul. The kids especially liked seeing the ostrich eggs. They then designed their own eggs on paper with marker and construction paper crayons. It was a quick one day lesson, but maybe next year I’ll spread it over two classes so we can focus on more details and have more time to learn about the tradition.

The kids really wanted to decorate real eggs, so hopefully they might be able use what they learned at home this weekend. Decorating around 120 eggs with 38 second graders at a time is just a bit out of my budget and comfort zone.