art 101 week two: patterns

Monday has come yet again which means it's time to get back to work. Hope you all had a fun weekend. Our weekend began with dinner at the food trucks, then Max attended his first real performance (the amazing National Circus of the People's Republic of China) and we finished it off with apple picking on a farm outside of Petaluma, CA. Needless to say I'm not ready to go back to work!

But, since my boss insists... this week is pattern week. We're going to be talking about what a "pattern" is, making our own patterns and having fun with patterned paper. To begin our week we're starting by building a Pattern City. 

primary colors necklace

 Continuing with our introduction to primary colors, our next project combines the art of beading and dying pasta together. Remember this recipe? It was extremely useful today as we started dying pasta and getting ready to make our primary color necklaces. 

the paper towel roll challenge

My sister in law sent me my first project challenge! She writes: Paper towel rolls are the ones I want to use because we have a bunch of them. Supporting cast of googly eyes, pompoms, colored paper, crayons, markers, glue, sequins and some other stuff are readily available. I'd love to get in some projects that get away from just "glue this to that, then decorate with some sequins or whatever" but we've been in a rut because we accommodate kids in the range from preschool to 6th grade. Time to work on and complete project is about 15 - 20min.

There are plethora of projects one can do with paper towel rolls, but since this challenge is for a church, I decided on two projects specifically for a Sunday school class and one that's just plain fun.

Here we go!

eric carle style with a marble twist

Marbling is an easy way to make Eric Carle style animals with little fuss.

molecular necklaces

 In honor of the East Bay Mini-Maker Faire that's coming in October (yes, I know October is kinda far away, but I was inspired), I started making science oriented crafts. Here are some H2O necklaces made from beads and straw.