Loving These Coloring Pages...

I'm loving these free Dover coloring pages....so fun.  

(Nope...this wasn't done by me.  Gives me ideas though!)

Art With Kids: Coloring Pages

I subscribe to Dover's Free Sampler, which often has fun printables like coloring pages, paper dolls, etc.  I especially love the artwork coloring pages they sometimes share.  These coloring pages based on famous works of art and artistic styles would be great to help expose kids to artists from various periods.  I like the idea of letting kids color the picture first without seeing the original, then see how theirs differs, and what difference that makes in how the artwork looks.

Dover doesn't keep these up indefinitely, so you may want to download these for later use.  (A few of these are not from Dover, but most are)

Spot the Difference Artwork (Van Gogh and Mona Lisa)

Van Gogh Paintings

Impressionist Art Stained Glass (includes work by Degas and Van Gogh)

Impressionist Art (Degas, Renoir)

Renoir, Various Works,

Degas, Dancers

Art Nouveau Stained Glass

Various Still Life Coloring Pages (including Cezanne and Riviera)

Cezanne, Various Works, Artwork 2 

American Painters (including Benjamin West and Thomas Hart Benton)

Mona Lisa

Monet, Resource 2, 3, 4 (various  paintings)

Raphael (The Sistine Madonna)

Mexican Folk Art

How to Draw Mandelas

More Fine Art Coloring Pages on Education.com

Abstract Art

Golden Age Illustrators (Famous Fairy Tale Illustrations)

Art Appreciation Mempory Puzzles 

More Artistic Coloring Pages Here  (it may show this post first, but will also show all my other similar posts if you scroll down)

Art With Kids: Coloring Pages

Dover publishing has several wonderful coloring pages from famous artworks in it's recent samplers.  These are a great way to explore art with your kids.  Because they include the original works, you can let your kids compare how they colored them to how the original work was colored.

• Tiffany Windows
• Paintings by Women Artists
• More in a previous post here (some from other sources)
• My Own Scribbleprint Coloring Pages  (OK, I'm not in the same category of these other, but still.  *grin*)

(Note that the images in the Dover Samplers are not often available for long, so save these to your computer if you plan to use them later)

Art With Kids: Coloring Pages

 

Some of Dover's recent samplers featured some more free coloring pages that would be great for teaching kids about art.  These samples are only up for a limited time, so you may want to save them for later ( You can right click to save the images).

• There are two coloring pages here of famous artowork including American Gothic and the piece above by Asher B. Durand..    I love the idea of letting them color it before they see the original, so they can see what different color choices bring out in a picture.

• There are several coloring pages featuring Art Nouveau patterns and would be a fun way to expose kids to the Art Nouveau movement.  

• This beutiful artwork by Golden Age of Illustration artist Helen Stratton is not technically a coloring page, but being black and white could certainly work as one.  They also have several coloring pages based off the illustrations of Arthur Rackham, another Golden Age illustrator (and one of my favorite artists).

• This website, which is NOT part of Dover, has tons of coloring pages based on famous artworks.  The only things is you have to wait through a lot of ads (yep, so if all you see is an add at first, just wait for it to time through and you'll see coloring pages.)

• These Mosaic Coloring pages help kids explore the art of mosaics.

Free Art Coloring Pages

I subscribe to Dover's Free Sample E-mail.  They have two free coloring pages this week based off of famous artworks; one by Georges Seurat, and another by Van Gogh.  Click here to see both and download them if you want to. (Their samples are usually only availble for a month or two...so even if you want to use them later you might want to save them now.

I think these would be a great way to teach kids a little bit about art.  I think I'm going to tell my kids about the artists who made these but not show them the paintings in color until AFTER they've had a chance to color these themselves.   It might be fun to discuss the colors they used, versus the colors the original artist used (though I want to make sure they don't think they colored it "wrong" because they didn't do it like the artist did).

Dover also has some fun space coloring pages and space shuttle airplanes, and some monster coloring pages this week (plus some tattoo art and ironwork).  You can see all in their sampler here.  If you'ld like some coloring pages from a much less famous artist (me), you can find some of those here.

Scribbleprint Coloring Pages

Like to color? Have kids who like to color? Well, here's some fun coloring pages you can color yourself or use with your kids!  (Sadly...I lost some of these.   Eventually I'll redo them or figure out where they are, but for now, here's the ones I still have)

Sadly all the ones below are ones that I've lost.   

If you happen to have one of these in a file I would love if you would send it to me.   The best way is through a private message to my facebook page here.

Click on the images above to get a larger version to print. These printouts are free for you and your kids to use. They can be used as coloring pages in schools, day-cares, churches, or of course, at home. They may NOT be re-posted on another website or used commercially without my permission. You may, however, post pictures of the print-outs you or your child has colored on your personal, non-commercial website or blog (or on flickr, facebook, or other social networking sites).

And here's some pictures of some my website visitors have colored:

Regina colored a heart together with her daughter Aurora.
You can see more pictures on her blog here.

 

Beeb used a purple sharpie and a
pink hi-lighter to make her Psychedelic Leaves.

Petra (a forum friend of mine)
colored this heart...

...and her son colored this heart...

...and this leaf.

If you'ld like to color a Scribbleprint like these, they are free to print here.

 

If you or your child has colored one of these, and you want to share it, you can e-mail me a picture of it at ecarian@yahoo.com, or post it on your blog or website and leave a link in the comments and I'll add it to this page! 

Found Heart

My littlest likes to paint, and I've been trying to teach him the pattern: water, paint, paper...water, paint, paper. He getting it down, and the water colors are surviving longer without turning to brown.  But every two year old forgets now and then, and one such moment resulted in the tiny green heart in the yellow paint above, which I caught for Guest Heart Thursday.

Where Art Meets Math...

A friend shared this amazing video with me recently....





Isn't that cool? The artist who made that, Vi Hart - Mathemusician, has more amazing videos here.


I showed that to the kids (ages 6, and 7...my 2 year old was napping). They were ready to bail on it at first but then she started drawing and they were hooked. After it was finished they wanted to try it too.  So did I!

Here's what I drew...

(You wouldn't believe how hard it is to try to make
hearts in different sizes all the exact same shape...
Just makes me even more impressed that the
Mathemusician can do that with ELEPHANTS!)


And here's what my 6 year old drew...

 

My 7 year old drew some too, but he drew them on dark blue construction paper in pencil, and it doesn't photograph well.  Plus he's not finished.

Really enjoyed this and plan to do more!  You know, when I was a teen I thought of myself as a "creative person" (still do), and saw math and science as the polar opposite to that. But over the years I've learned that it isn't.  Math and science can be useful tools to help you express your creativity.

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Shared on Littles Learning Link Up

When Art Meets Science

I just love when art meets science. Last month we got to introduce our kids to one of my favorite artsy science experiments.

It's fun and fairly simple. You will need:

• A shallow pan or bowl
• Milk
• Food coloring
• Dish soap

Fill the pan with milk. Drop several drops of different colored food coloring in different places in the milk. Then, squirt a small drop of dish soap in the middle of the dish soap. The colors will start to swirl as the dish soap reacts to the protein in the milk.  Like this...

Isn't that cool!  Of course, if you want to keep this "artwork" to hang on your wall then you'll have to take some pictures like we did.  I love how this also caught the reflection of the lights above our table.  Pretty cool!

LESSON IN COLORS
Use red, yellow, and blue food coloring to help teach younger children what colors are created when those colors mix.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT
I found this description of what causes the colors to swirl on About.com:

"The detergent lowers the surface tension of the liquid so that the food coloring is free to flow throughout the milk. The detergent reacts with the protein in the milk, altering the shape of those molecules and setting them in motion."

You can read the whole description at the bottom of About.com's Magic Colored Milk Science Project Page.

This post is participating in the following memes, where you can find
a lot of other creative ideas for kids!

 



Little Masterpieces

Get Crafty

Throwback Thursday

My Son's Scribbleprints

There are some things your kids will do that will just melt your heart.

This is one of them.

Remind you of anything? My seven year old is making Scribbleprints!  No prompting...he decided to do this all on his own.  We thought the one above looked like a clover, and I got to talk with him about discovering pictures in the scribbles.  :-)

This one he patterned after my cross design (which is on a magnet up in the corner...scroll down to see a larger version of mine, for comparison).   I think his cross is beautiful!  If you look in the pattern you can make out his original scribble and see how he filled in areas on the side, and I  like the types of patterns this made.  This one might have to go straight from the fridge to a frame.

(My cross design below, for comparison, since it's hard to see in the magnet.  Mine has been polished up somewhat and colored in a graphics editor.)

Here's another one he did with a shape to it...

This picture is 100% his own creation.  I think his snail is precious and love

how he made scribble letters with it too!

My son imitating my art makes my heart smile.  I know as he continues to draw and paint and craft he'll come up with his own style and niche that is just his, and I look forward to seeing that develop.  But for now I feel proud to know he likes the art I do enough to try it for himself.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN SCRIBBLE ART

I guess you could say this proves even a child can do Scribbleprints...but, I already knew that.    If you want to try out making your own scribble drawings they are easy to do.   First, make a scribble...just any random scribble will do.   Then fill in each section of the scribble with concentric lines of the same shape (only smaller).    Often you will find shapes in a random scribble that you can draw out by the way you color your scribble.   If you want you can also try scribbling shapes on purpose...these are a little trickier because you want to keep the loose feeling of a scribble, but still control it enough to make a shape.  When I do shaped scribbles (like my cross and wreath), I often do multiple versions before I find one I like enough to clean up in a graphic editor and use in my shop. 

 

Magic Marker Monday

I hadn't shown off my kids art here in quite a while....so long in fact that one or two pieces just won't do.  They just brought home a bunch of really neat fall art from school, so I had to share the whole fridge-full!

Love all those pumpkins and leaves and bright colors!

 Here's a close up of the scarecrow my 7 year old did.

 

And heres some fun farm animals!  My seven year old made the chicken, and was really proud of the shading he did (and with good reason, I think!).  The pig is by my 6 year old.  Notice the popsicle sticks for the fence!  He's always loved using three dimensional stuff.  For the longest time he had no interest in drawing, but if you brought out dried spaghetti or yarn he loved to make pictures with those.  Since Kindergarten he's started to enjoy drawing more, but those popsicle sticks make me smile because that's just so HIM. 

That's actually only HALF the art on my fridge.   I'll share the rest soon!

Free Fall Printable Coloring Pages

Time to remind everyone about the fun free fall coloring page I have to offer! Now doesn't that look fun to color? And they aren't just for kids! Grown-ups can have fun coloring too!

I also have one sectioned into smaller cut-apart boxes which would be fun for a classroom activity, party favors, trick-or-treat bags, or for a fun activity to keep the kids busy while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.

Click on leaf for larger version to download.
(For non-commercial, personal use only.)

Here's how to turn this into a fun favor (or even something to give out to Trick-or-Treaters):

1. Click on the image above for a larger, printable version. 
2. Right click and save it on your computer.
3. Print it.
   
4. Cut out along the dotted lines.
5. Take a couple crayons and a small rubber band (like the little ones used for hair-braids), then wrap each coloring paper you just cut out around the crayons and secure with the rubber band.  
6. ALTERNATIVE IDEA:  Follow steps 1 - 4, but in stead of rolling it around crayons, cut out cardboard slightly larger than the picture (old cereal boxes work good for this), and using a glue stick glue a single leaf picture on the  front.  This gives the kiddos a solid surface to draw on.  Put these in a plastic or cello wrap baggie with crayons OR use a hole punch to make a hole, tie a ribbon to it, and tie a crayon or colored pencil on the other end. 
   

Wha-la! A fun party favor that costs next to nothing!

These are just a couple of the coloring pages you can print for free from my site. See more here.

And here's some examples of them colored by my readers...

 Beeb colored the following.  She didn't have crayons ready, so she used a 

purple sharpie and a pink hi-lighter to make her Psychedelic Leaves. 

Petra's son colored this leaf.  Love it!

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Thanks to the following blogs that let me link this post up in their linky parties!












Fabulous Friday
It's All About Fall
Autumn Inspired Art
Categorically Crafting 4 Fall


More Fall Blog Events

Magic Marker Monday - First School Picture

Here's the first picture my Kindergartener brought home this year...a self-portrait!

(Name edited out for safety reasons)

Robot!

Here's a picture my 7 year old drew earlier this summer.

Robot parade!

Robot parade!

Robots obey

what the children say!

(Thats a song from They Might Be Giants Friday Night Video Podcast,

a podcast with great quirky kids songs that we're addicted to). 

My two older boys are back in school today, 

and now it's just me and my littlest hanging out. It's so quiet!

"Rocking" the Legos Again

Here's a sampling of what my boys have been up to lately...

This is a stage for a very tiny rock band.

And yes, that does spell out the word Rock.

And oh, does it!

And here's a dog house my kids made for their pet doggy.

It doesn't spell it out for you like the last one, but yeah, it rocks too!

Oh, and if you had noticed a trend on the last few Magic Marker Monday's of no markers being involved...and were wondering if my boys spent all their free time making things out of legos...well, you'ld pretty much be right. :-)

What My Kids Have Been Up To This Week....

Artistically, that is...

We found instructions for this fun giraffe craft at Redtedart's Blog.

We were all out of yellow paint so went for blue, red, and green. 

And of course there were more lego creations,

including this tractor...

...and this amazing tree house.