Collage art for kids, Creative Family Living, Drawing ideas for kids

Kids Mixed Media Art :: Creativity Inspired by Fabric Scraps

November 3, 2013

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On Friday, the kids had fun creating mixed media art with autumn-colored fabrics and paints.

I set up a basket of fabric scraps in the middle of the table, along with sharpies, sequins, a few glue bottles, and some paint. A sheet of white paper at each chair and the set up was complete.

Once Maia and her friend Kara were home from school and the three kids ate their snack, did a complete inventory and trading session of their trick-or-treating loot (it was the day after Halloween, after all), and swung on the swings, they migrated to the table.*

Mixed Media Art for Kids

MATERIALS

Paper
Markers
Paints
Fabric scraps
Glue
Sequins, buttons, beads, glitter (optional)

The Mixed Media Art in Progress

Daphne came in from playing first and immediately started drawing, painting, and collaging. First she drew a clown juggling (it started out as a portrait of me with my glasses and somehow morphed)…

…then added orange paint and a generous number of colorful fabric pieces.

Besides the basket of scraps, I had cut some into smaller pieces—squares, triangles, and polygons—and scattered them around the center of the table.

I knew the older kids could cut the fabric themselves but the fabric scissors were too big, sharp, and tricky for Daphne to manage. So I had some fabric pieces ready to use, which she did quite enthusiastically!

After her first collage, Daphne drew “a friendly monster with lots and lots of eyes”…

…and started gluing sequins on to the eyes.

When Maia and Kara finally came in, they dove right into the materials as well, both drawing people, and adding paint and fabric to complete the collages.

Kara glued sequins and a couple of fabric pieces to her paper and worked carefully on painting and mixing colors to suit her vision.

Maia drew a girl, painted in the face and hair, then glued on a fabric dress (she asked for some help cutting it to fit) and lace trim.

By using Autumn colors for the fabrics and paints, by the way, we turning this into a fall art activity without so much as a pumpkin or leaf in sight!

Have your kids used fabric in their art-making yet?

Did it seem to inspire them differently?

By the way, if you don’t have a fabric stash of your own, either ask any fabric-addict sewist you know to set aside some small pieces for you (believe me, they’ll have plenty!). Or buy a few fat quarters in the quilting section of the craft/fabric store.

*Sooo… I wrote a note here about how I set up art activities for playdates and for my kids but let them notice and come over in their own time. But the little postscript became longer than this post, so I’ll save it for a separate post—maybe tomorrow.