::: such a beautiful butterfly
We pulled out and reread a favourite book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” …
written by the amazing Eric Carle, who will celebrate his 82nd birthday this Friday.
Kate over at An Amazing Child is heading the charge to celebrate all week, this talented writer and artist’s birthday, so naturally we wanted to be involved too.
After reading the story we asked the children what we could do to celebrate this great man.
They decided, as it was his birthday, we should make him a present … well naturally! They had a hunt through our art supplies and decided that a mosaic butterfly would be good as they loved the beautiful butterfly in the book.
So while the children sourced what they thought would make for good mosaic pieces …
and we pulled out the paints and a large board we had picked up from Resource Rescue.
We thought an interesting and fun way for the children to apply the paint would be with cardboard rollers, an idea we picked from Maria over at her wonderful and inspiring blog Casa Maria’s Creative Learning Zone.
First they painted the big board with bright colours, which was laced with PVA glue …
using the cylinders to roll the paint all around.
A beautiful work of art in itself!
Not surprisingly this quickly became fingers and hands …
and with the addition of some stick scratching …
it resulted in a really pleasing texture.
The body was a tricky problem until someone found a zipper – perfect! Body and antennae in one.
Then they chose heaps of circular objects …
of differing diameters and heights …
to be the patterns on the wings.
He definitely was a beeea-uuuu-tiful butterfly!
This post has been linked to the Eric Carle birthday celebrations over at An Amazing Child!
Be sure to pop on over and see how others are celebrating this great man this week!
This post has also been added to another Eric Carle celebration
taking place over at the blog Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas !
Tags: bottle tops, butterfly, buttons, Eric Carle, paint, round objects, zip
This is just wonderful. Didn’t they do a great job! Lucky you had all the tidbits on hand
Now to decide what you are going to do with it….
::: Thanks Kate. They did do a great job and were understandably extremely proud of themselves!
Hi,
Came here via the linkup at the Imagination Tree. What a beautiful mosaic this is and as big as the child’s imagination. A beautiful gift for the writer of their favourite story book.
::: Thank you Rashmie we thoroughly agree! … Thanks for stopping by too!
I love both the originality and the child directed process! A perfect combination resulting in a beautiful piece of collaborative art work! Gorgeous
::: Thanks Anna!
Gorgeous! I wish I could have seen the brainstorming. . .I bet it was loud and excited chatter.
::: You’re right Jill but fortunately they were all on the same page!!
It is so wonderful, you girls are such an inspiration x
::: Shhhhhh … don’t tell anyone Christie but it’s actually the children who are the inspirational ones around here!
Wow! This looked like a lot of fun! My kids would love to do this.
My youngest son’s favorite Eric Carle book right now is Have You Seen My Cat? We made our own book with Eric Carle Style illustrations to celebrate Eric Carle’s Birthday. Hope you can come check it out:
http://www.happybirthdayauthor.com/2011/06/happy-birthday-eric-carle-june-25.html
::: Thanks Eric. We’ll be sure to pop on over and check things out. Thanks for stopping by!
How creative!
::: Thank you Leanne!
What a lovely large scale project! This must have been so fun to create!
Would love for you to link up at The Sunday Showcase – (kids craft linky party) http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com/search/label/Sunday%20Showcase
and my special Eric Carle linky – http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com/search/label/Eric%20Carle%20Theme
Bernadette
::: Thanks Bernadette.
