Kids are always eager to draw pictures. They know firsthand the pleasure of putting crayon to paper (and to an occasional wall or two) to express what's in their imagination. You can enhance your child's natural creativity and love of art by offering them many new experiences, using basic art supplies and unexpected items to challenge and surprise.
For this simple art activity, your child will actually draw on sandpaper and with adult assistance transfer the drawing onto a piece of paper. The texture of the sandpaper will create a beautiful picture made up of tiny dots. It's especially fun for kids because their artwork will resemble pointillism, a painting technique used by Postimpressionist painter Georges Seurat. He used dots of colors instead of brush strokes in his paintings.Here's how to do sandpaper art:
Using crayons, draw a picture on a piece of fine-grain sandpaper. Press hard. When complete, place the sandpaper upside down on a sheet of white or light-colored construction paper. With adult assistance, apply a warm iron directly to the backside of the sandpaper for 15 to 20 seconds. Remove iron. Wait 30 seconds and gently remove the sandpaper to reveal the picture on the construction paper in dot form. Encourage your child to look closely at the painting to see the dots, then step away to see how they blend together.
You may wish to do a follow-up family activity and take your kids to an art museum in your area (or while on vacation this summer) to see an exhibition of French Impressionists, or visit your public library and find books with paintings of Impressionists and Postimpressionists.