Harry Potter Library Bag

Joaquin made this awesom Harry Potter bag to carry his library books in. We had a couple extra copies of Harry Potter books, so he tore them up, made a collage on contact paper, then connected it all together for this great bag!

Laying out the collage.

The bag!

Even the inside looks cool!

Atlas is working on a Little Bear bag, and Oliver on No David. More photos to come!

Matisse Prints

After reading a book about Henri Matisse, the boys made their own Matisse inspired prints.

First they cut shapes out of foam, then glued them onto card board

After rubbing with ink, they made a print, then cut around their disign and mounted it onto a second colorful paper. This is Oliver's.

This is Joaquin's dancer (posted upside down, still need help figuring out how to edit the photos on blogspot)

Atlas' dinosaur playing drums!

Sackboy

One of the things my boys love are video games, a current favorite is Little Big Planet. They designed their own sackboys on paper, instead of a screen.

 First they made crayon rubbings with texture plates for their sack's textile skin.

Then they dressed their sack boy, using oil pastels

Joaquin's is Simon Sack, a character from one of his stories

Atlas' is the Monkey King

Oliver's

Joaquin also drew his own sackboy, this one is a jade goyle sackboy, from the book Reckless, by Cornelia Funke.

Sketch!

Picked up sketch books for the kids. I'd like to get them drawing on a regular basis. Trying to think of a cool way for them to decorate the covers.

Oliver works on Woody

Atlas draws with his feet

Joaquin works on comic book heads.

Dyed Dragons

The boys made beautiful dragons tonight, using color diffusing paper.

First they drew their dragons. Atlas drew a mummy getting attacked by a dragon, and a flaming toilet.

Joaquin's dragon has five golden spikes on his back to represent how many centuries old he is.

Oliver didn't draw for long, but he loved painting his picture.

We sprayed the pictures with water, then they watched their colors spead while they painted the color diffusing paper with liquid watercolors.

Loved how vibrant these paints were!

Joaquin's finished painting

Oliver's artwork

Atlas' completed project

Jeweled Pokemon!

The boys all love Pokemon, so I did a project that incorperated their favorite characters.

First they colored their pokemon with markers

Next they started covering their pictures with glue and beads

                After covering them with beads, we cut them out and mounted them on  colored stock.

Atlas made Riolu

Oliver did Pikachu

Joaquin chose Cherrim. The photo is upside down. For some reason Blogspot keeps flipping my photos, I can't figure out how to edit this, if any one knows how please post a comment!

Charcoal Roses

Valentines left us with a beautiful vase of roses on our table, perfect for drawing a still life!

Swirly Play Dough Cookies

When ever we make play dough the kids ask if we can eat it, so on Monday we decided to make some colorful cookie dough to play with, bake, then eat. The boys kneaded pink and purple food coloring into their dough (for Valentines day), played with it for a bit, then rolled them into long snakes and spirals, stuck them in the oven, and ate yummy sugar cookies for their Valentine's desert.

Joaquin adding color, Oliver looking on with his pasta sauce beard

rolling snakes

ready to bake

They turned out delicious!

Big Valentine

The boys had a fun and messy time creating a giant valentine for dad.

The completed valentine

Atlas' finished ceramic valentine for his friend

Rainbow Heart Banner

The boys fun experimenting with our new rainbow finger paint paper.

Joaquin cut the paintings into hearts for a valentine banner.

More Valentines!

We finished making our valentines and used blow pens to make some cool envelopes to send them in.

Valentines!

Our first night of making Valentines, Atlas has a class of 18 to make them for! Joaquin's are mostly being sent via mail.

We have a fun huge collection of supplies for making valentines this year!

Here are some that Atlas made

Atlas loved using loads of glitter glue!

Joaquin's

Oliver's has several layers of Spiderman pictures glued together.