Crafty Kid Fun: Eric Carle Collages

Months and months ago, my kids and I decided to try a craft from one of our favorite books, Best of FamilyFun Crafts and Boredom Busters.

It was making our very own Eric Carle Collages. Eric Carle....wow, right? Illustrator of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (which has always been a favorite of my children) and author/illustrator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar as well as many many other books. I've always been fascinated with his technique. What a brilliant man!

I couldn't find the craft on FamilyFun's site to link to, but here's a video to help explain it....

We used white printer paper instead of tissue paper. But I'd like to try the tissue next time. It'd be fun to see how this changes the texture of the collage. And I also think it would be easier to layer pieces. I wonder if it would rip easily though. Especially with kids in on the process.

So, anyway....like I said, months ago we started this project. We gathered the paper and the paint and then we rummaged around the house for all sorts of things we could dip in paint and stamp on the paper. We drove trucks through paint and onto paper. We tried old spools. We stamped with the green plastic flower part of fake flowers. We found a star foam shape and tried that. We went wild with paint brushes, letting ourselves splatter the paint in every which way we wanted onto the paper. 

It was quite a bit of fun.

Then we let the paint dry. And we kept meaning to get back to this project. And then....the papers got moved to the basement. 

And forgotten. 

Until Tuesday night! I pulled them out and Sam, Zoe and I got busy (Weston was elsewhere and Emmett was in trouble, sadly, and had extra chores). 

Zoe is struggling to finish her dinner there in the
background so she could get in on the collaging fun. 

It took her awhile to choke down dinner though.
So, she had to finish her masterpiece the next morning.
And for some reason she likes to wear her brother's
old tie-dyed t-shirts for jammies. 

Sam had a great time making this rockin' awesome robot....

Apparently he is mad because another robot pushed him in the back. You think he could just get even with his Laser Eyes of Death....or maybe one of those handy buttons on the front there?

Zoe made a princess.....(you, of course, recognized what it was right away. It's not like I needed to tell you , right? Of course not.) 

And I couldn't be left out of the fun....

I probably should have been doing something useful like dishes or laundry or discovering the kitchen counters I lost 3 months ago....I know they're around here somewhere. I just can't seem to reach them because of the massive piles of junk in the way..... But who wants to tidy things? Nah, cutting paper and gluing is way more fun.

This was a great way to spend the evening with my kids (well, a couple of them anyways....).

I'm planning on putting the kid's pictures up on our museum wall (that's where our artwork goes) and I just might put mine there, too! 

Here's another video about Eric Carle and his fun artistic technique...