Making Art with Children

Dear Art Studio,

For almost fifteen years, my teachers and I have been inspired by Eric Carle artwork and stories.  We have read, acted out, and dreamed as characters in every story.  We have also created our own Eric Carle inspired art projects.  In fact, several years ago in a training, our teachers created their very own “Carle-esque” storybook.  This project not only celebrated their teaching talents, but the storybook became a fundraising resource in our school’s expansion.

Our school now has the opportunity to share the world of Eric Carle with the senior center with whom we have developed an intergenerational program.  During February of this year, we hope to pair young preschoolers with senior citizens to collaborate on art pieces and a storybook demonstrating the various meanings of love.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.

Sincerely,  Lisa D.

Thanks so much for writing to The Eric Carle Museum about your intergenerational project plans.  Eric Carle’s books are a wonderful starting point for a collaborative art project between young children and adults.

To help get your Eric Carle inspired project underway I have a few suggestions that we’ve adapted here at The Carle in our Art Studio when making tissue paper collages.  I’m not sure how many children and adults will be involved in your project, but our Tissue Paper Collage activity page will provide you with step by step instructions and suggestions for getting started.  Check out our recent post about Watercolor Wash Collage Papers.  We’ve also created a recipe to make liquid starch glue used to attach the tissue papers to the background paper available in a printable PDF on our website’s Activities page.    Or you can buy liquid laundry starch in your grocery store’s laundry aisle.

Perhaps one way the adults could contribute to the collaboration is having them prepare the tissue papers for the activity.  They could cut a variety of colored and patterned tissue papers into geometric and organic shapes and put them into baskets for the children to collage with.

Another great way to have the children and adults interact is having them read Eric Carle books together before the art activity and discuss Eric’s illustration process.

When your storybook is complete, we would love to see it!   Email your students’ Eric Carle inspired art to artstudio@carlemuseum.org and we may post it on the blog.  Don’t forget to document the project with photographs and notes; we’d love to see all the work along the way!

Tags: Eric Carle, Eric Carle Theme, intergenerational, senior citizens, Tissue Paper Collage

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under Activities, Collage, Elementary School, High School, Materials, Middle School, Nurturing Creativity at Home, Preschool. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.