Childrens Christmas Crafts no 1 - Reindeer Hand and Foot print

With Christmas rapidly approaching it is that time of year when parents, teachers, playgroup leaders and so forth spend time searching through the Internet and craft books to find suitable ideas for children- only to then have to work out how to adapt the craft for their specific age group. Well look no further. For the next 7 days I am going to blog a different craft activity each day and discuss how this can be differentiated for various age group.

Today's installment - Foot and hand print Reindeer's!!!

This hand print reindeer is a fun creative craft that is made from a child's footprint and hand prints. It is good way of discussing proportion and scale, looking at scissor skills as well as creating a nice addition to the memory box documenting your children when they are small. 

You will need, paper, 2 googly eyes (optional), Red pom pom/glitter or paint, Scissors, Glue, Crayons or paint

 The finished Design. I have been quite traditional in my colour choice however children may want to make their reindeer purple and pink with blue spots - this should be encouraged. it is so hard to encourage children to be creative when they are only given limited materials and colours to work with.

Take a rubbing of the bottom of a shoe, most children’s shoes have a really interesting patterns on them. You can do this by placing a piece of paper on top of the sole of the show and rubbing gently with a crayon or pencil. Make sure that children are either sitting down or take their shoes of to take rubbings rather than balancing in one foot - we don't want anyone falling over! Children could work in pairs for this activity.

 This is a completed rubbing from the bottom of a shoe

 

Trace around your hands on plain white paper. When drawing a picture or cutting out parts to be stuck together children often struggle with proportion and scale. If they use their hands and feet to create this piece it will be in proportion because they are, You can have some real fun playing around with this drawing around an adults hand and feet as well and mixing them with the smaller children's cut outs.

 Now have a look around the classroom for any interesting textures. Make sure that you encourage the children to feel the textures before taking a rubbing, discuss whether it is smooth, rough, bumpy - do you think it will work if you rub a crayon over the top? Fill the outline of the hand prints with rubbings of textured surfaces. I have used oil pastels to do this but you could use coloured pencils or crayons.

Carefully cut out your footprint and hand prints, for younger children an adult will have to do this part. Key stage one children that are working on their cutting skills should be encouraged to try to cut out the shapes

Glue the two hand prints (at the wrist portion) to the back of the footprint (up near the toes) to be the antlers.

Draw two eyes at the top of the head or you could glue two googly eyes. Finally for the nose you can either use glitter glue, as I have done for this example, Glue on a pom pom or paint on a red nose.

This is a good exercise for all age groups as there are alot of ways this can be adapted.

For young children, (or children that like getting messy) you

For Key stage one children you may need to help them draw around the shapes and cut them out before they collect rubbing. Children could also paint a design on the cut out pieces rather than collect rubbings.

Key stage two children will enjoy painting their hands and collecting rubbings as this provides an opportunity for them to explore art making techniques that they do not often get to use. If you wanted to give them something a bit more challenging they could collage the facial features by cutting out sections of colour from magazines and then glue these pieces on the reindeer.

This may be a bit young for Key stage three children, but they could adapt the piece and make it a little more abstract. Possible adding a hint of pop art style to the pieces. Alternatively they could cut out the sections and paint a Christmas scene on the surface using acrylic paint. Make sure that you use a good quality paper or card if you are going to apply paint.

Have fun and don't forget to email me any of your pictures of completed projects.

 can create this by painting your hands and feet and printing them onto paper rather than collecting rubbings. Be sure to have a bowl of water and towels on the stand by.

Keep up the fight

As an artist I am influenced by many different things, everyday situations, colours in the sunlight, a song on the radio, other artists etc etc. However one of my main influences has to be my amazing family. Today, in the pouring rain, my mother, sister and nieces took part in the race for life along with an additional 4000 people. "What is so amazing about that?" I hear you ask.

My sister was diagnosed with Breast Cancer a year ago and has had to undergo a year of treatment including an operation, chemo therapy, radio therapy and a lot of discomfort. My mother is battling her 3rd (yes that was not a typo) her 3rd cancer - Mouth cancer having already beaten cervical and breast cancer. My mum has had to endure a series of intense operations that have included breaking her jaw, inserting metal plates, removing parts of her tongue and leaving her in a lot of discomfort and unable to eat properly.

Both my Sister and Mother have such strength and positive attitudes, it must be unbearable for them some days but they always carry themselves with such grace and courage, I am so proud of both of them.

 I have tried to portray how in awe I am other both my sister and mother's strength they have shown not just for themselves but for their family throughout their battle in the art work pictured below. I also wanted to create something that shows the strength, courage and community spirit that is in abundance on days such as the Race for Life - to honour all who take part.

The pictures below show a canvas that was made by taking rubbings of the runners/walkers trainer soles and gluing them in the shape of the ribbon sign. Around the outside of the ribbon participants wrote messages for loved ones that are battling cancer and loved ones that have sadly departed this world. Some people wanted to write messages of hope for cures. Others noted bravery and thanks for support given. In fact I was amazed at how many people have been affected and touched by someone who is battling or unfortunately lost the battle of cancer. Some people were writing messages for 4-5 people. We had so many people wanting to write messages we had to continue into a book as you can see from the picture below, the canvas was filled up in no time.

 

 My niece writing her comments on the canvas

 The completed canvas

 In addition to the canvas above I have created some paper collages using a range of paper engineering techniques that discuss the personal battles my mother and sister have fought as well as investigating the medium of paper and technique of frottage. 

 3 Cancers. In this piece I have used pieces of the three cancers my mother has had (be it pictures of the actual cancer sourced for the Internet or pictures taken directly after my mothers surgery). The cancer cells are extremely beautiful under a microscope and have amazing shape and line to them which I find quite ironic for something that is so destructive and deadly. The paper craft techniques include iris folding, collage and star bursts.

 Mums arm after surgery - A drawing of my mothers arm after an operation that included taking a a lump of skin from my mums arm to rebuild her tongue. The orange background was a rubbing taken from inside the hospital and the green shapes and rubbings from objects that represent all of my mothers children and grandchildren. Once again I have tried to concentrate on the aesthetic beauty juxtaposed to cancers brutality.

 Mums Collage

 Nicks Collage

 Haircut - in this piece I have used a papercraft cage to disguise an image of my sister having her head shaved during her chemo. This was a very emotional day for my sister and once again, I was overwhelmed by how brave she was and how she was more concerned about me than herself. I have used frottage to create images of cancer cells taken for textured surfaces around our houses. The papercage is not used to hide my sister but to encourage the viewer to take a closer look, to look beyond the haircut and see the person inside.

My amazing Mother and Sister

I really hope that days like today continue to emphasise how important it is to support research, to support our hospitals, our nurses, surgeons and amazing Macmillan nurses to find a cure for cancer, new medications and treatments that ease the suffering and pain cancer patients have to endure.

If you have not already donated to this cause please donate anything you can to http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/ every penny really does help.