Potluck Collage Art Party

Last night we went to a fun Family Art Night event. They had four stations set up. One was a low table covered with white paper and ornate empty picture frames drawn on. Young children could take markers and draw portraits of their families. One was a table of potatoes, cutting boards and knives, paintbrushes, acrylic paints, inks, and bristol board.

My husband carved my name in one potato and his name in the other and made a beautiful paper with the two of our names in different colored circles.

One station was devoted to the art style of Amedeo Modigliani. We had a page of information and some samples of his work. We also had long rectangles of black construction paper. By folding the paper in half long wise, then in half and in half again short wise, we had a way to get our proportions correct. The head was a long oval that took up the top half of the paper. The next quarter down was the neck. The final quarter was the shoulders. We had oil pastels to use on our black paper.

(The bottom link is to a 2015 calendar. Buying calendars gives you nice classroom-sized sturdy examples of an artist's work, even better if you cut and laminate them, and buying a calendar in February means you get a GREAT discount on the price -- as of today $4.78 and free shipping!)

Lastly, there were four tables covered in white paper and boxes of blocks. These were large pieces of scrap wood. There were scrapbook papers and decorative hole punches, hammers and nails, paints and brushes, feathers, embroidery flosses, and lots and lots of mod podge.

We painted and decorated our blocks any way we chose. Many people put in designs with nails and then wrapped them with the embroidery floss.

I was really wishing we had buttons on the table, when I came up with a great idea. Why not have a Potluck Collage Art Party? You could supply the wood blocks and some basic essentials. Everyone who came to the party could bring a box or bag of some supply they have at home that they think would be cool for an art project. Then you could spread it all out on the table. My husband brought home some some scrap wire yesterday and the girls are having a great time to day making sculptures with it! So I asked Natalie if she'd like to have that be the theme for her birthday party next month and she said YES! She is very excited. She's also excited about her cake, since we found a birthday candle that is a Question Mark. She wants me to write with frosting on her cake "12 + 1 =" and then put the ? candle.