Explore Art: Hands On Art November

November's theme for Explore Art Projects is

Hands On Art

a month of projects focusing on everyday fun art with your hands

First up is finger painting.  You might be a little hesitant to let your kids dive right into finger painting it is a little messy and it may appear to be uncontrolled.  But I urge you to give it a try.

Cy has been doing a lot of finger painting projects in Pre-K and it reminded me of how much fun it can be and how much it has to offer young children.   

 Finger painting allows children to explore both art making and art materials, it encourages self expression and creativity, works on tactile exploration, hand eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Here's a few project ideas to try with your kids, don't worry about the mess, jump in and have fun.  For materials use children's washable paint or tempera paint and use thicker paper like watercolor or poster board.

Project #1:  Monochromatic Finger Painting, pick one color to start with and allow your child to explore how they can make markings with their fingers.  Using one color will allow your child to focus on how they are using the medium, how it feels and what it looks like when they put it on the paper.

Project #2:  Color Finger Painting, this next project offers them a variety of colors to finger paint with.  This will help your child learn colors and see what happens when colors are mixed together, primary/ secondary colors.

**Finger painting is a great project that lets children focus on the process of making art.  They are not worried about how to hold a paint brush, how to get the paint on it and make the correct marks on paper.  They are using something they know well and use everyday-- their hands!**

Project #3: Finger painting a subject, pick a subject or topic for your child to finger paint.  Once they have explored and done a few finger paintings this is a great project to graduate to.  They can experiment at how to look at the world around them and re-create things on paper- creating art.  Cy recently painted pumpkins in school.

Tips for Finger Painting with your children:  Remember to keep an open discussion going with your child as they are creating art.  Talk to them about how the paint feels, ask them about how they are using the paint to make a picture on their paper.  

If they're using more than one color it's an excellent time to have the name their colors and talk about what happens when you mix certain colors together.  Also encourage your children to explore how they are finger painting.  What happens when they move their hand, arm real fast with wide strokes verses keeping their fingers, hand in one section moving back and forth only a little bit. 

This is a time for them to let loose, have fun explore art and express themselves with Hands On Art!