I was scrolling through the interwebs as one is inclined to do and stumbled upon this amazing work of art by Damien Hirst:
I loved it so much I was immediately inspired to create a lesson based on it! So I created a How-to-Draw-a-Skull video for you and your students. I've been seeing so many art teacher do the paint-squeegee method that, when I saw this work of art, I thought it would be the perfect inspiration. So! If you are interested, here's the kid-friendly video I created for you and your students!
I hope you find the video helpful and fun!
I tried several paint pull methods. I used my craft store acrylics and, while they worked fine, I do think the colors could have been more opaque. I did find that folding the paper in half and just adding dollops of paint to the crease worked really well. Not only that but then the paint left on the scrapper can be used on the other side!
The funnier the faces, the better, I think! I do love how the fold breaks up the pattern of paint smear too.
But what I was really interested in was keeping the skull white (or silver in the case of the video) and the background colorful. That was a fun experiment!
Last Friday, I hosted a Halloween craft night and it was a whole lot of fun. We created super simple embroidery and needle felted decorations. My theme for mine was Day of the Dead but, since I was hosting a bunch of art teachers, I decided to just share the basics and leave the options and creativity up to them. Here's what they came up with:
So fun, right?! After sharing these images on my Instagram, I got a lot of questions about embroidery and needle felting basics. This project is all about the basics so I thought I'd create a little easy-peasy tutorial for you and the crafty folks in your life. I do believe children as young as 7 years old could handle this craft with you by their side. Here you go:
If you are not familiar with Day of the Dead and would like to read more, you might want to start here.
Supplies needed: * Embroidery hoop (ours were about 6" wide) * Fabric (scraps work great for the background!) * Embroidery floss * Embroidery or chenille needle * Craft store felt in a variety of colors Optional: * Wool Roving * Needle felting tool * Needle felting cushion
Instead of needle felting, you could always just glue on flowers, jewels or Halloween decor! The fun part on craft night was having a ton of supplies on hand for everyone and just seeing what all they could dream up!
I like to keep my Calaveras (skulls) in the hoops and then hang them that way. I have a Halloween Tree (yes, I'm that person) and they look so cute on there.
I hope that tutorial helps. Have a wonderful time creating! If you like this, you might want to grab MY BOOK, right here!
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