Fun time making mixed media art

It was an artsy fartsy Sunday for us last week. I decided to spend time to guide my girls to do mixed media artworks. This is  something that I had been wanted to do with them since  Ning inspired me with one of her many creations,  see image on the right. I love how she upcycled the harden play dough which I told her to throw away.

The girls welcomed the idea of an art project with excitements.  They were especially excited when they see me bringing out my stamps and ink pads to share with them.  It is a big treat for them to get to play with the “forbidden” tools at home.

I thought collage would be a fun project.   I got this idea some time ago when I saw Ning doodling on my outdated business cards. I found these little artworks fun and interesting and had kept them up for an art project. We had been saving embellishments from broken hair clips, old shoes and Christmas ornaments; reserving used gift ribbons and wrappers, fabric scraps, pretty brochures and catalogues..... and even corrugated boxes for upcycling projects.  All these materials came in handy for  a project like this one.

Zen came up with the idea of wrapping news paper on the  corrugated board and then layered it with paints all over the newspaper. She created a beautiful half translucent effect on the prints and images of the newspaper by surprise. Then, she went searching on my treasure box for pom poms fringes..... I went on to guide her on layering by using stamps and marker. With very little guidance, Zen created a lovely piece of artwork.

As for Ning,  she decided to paste  the pieces that she created on my outdated business cards onto the corrugated board and she decided to add on other items she found in our collection of elements. I showed Ning how she can linked all the elements in her artwork with strokes and lines, and that she can create a stylish piece of work even when it looks kind of messy. She went on to create images with free hand drawings, stamps, and doodling words onto the cardboard.  She uses various materials like poster colors, ink and crayons for those images.   She went bold with her strokes and achieved a wonderful piece of artwork.

The above artwork created by Zen is lovely and sweet. It looked like a real nice handbag :)
Looking at her art piece, I realized how much she has grown. She is more of a teenager than a kid even when she is only 10.

Ning's work is charming. I like the phrase ' Ning's Happy'. Indeed, she is happy when she does art.