Today I am taking a break from the normal news, travel, goings on in agriculture, to focus on creativity. Yeah! Let’s bring in an activity that can be done anytime, inside or outside, using materials that are inexpensive.
Here in Al Khobar we have come up with a cardboard art project that is fun.
You can make decorations for a birthday party, holidays such as Halloween, Ramadan, etc., or to decorate a room. We decided because of Covid, we would have a “ZOO” in our yard in the compound. To do this I asked the kids what animals they wanted in their zoo. We came up with “Curious George” the chimpanzee, “King Kong” the gorilla, 2 chameleons, 2 lady bugs, one crocodile, “Shawn the Sheep”, and a polka-dot lizard.
The materials we had on hand: Some cardboard boxes, acrylic paint, brushes, scissors, exacto knife, pens, pencils.
First you take a look at your cardboard and sketch out an outline of your shape. Then cut out the shape along the lines, to free it from the cardboard. You may need to give your hand a rest, as it is not easy with a scissors. If you have an exacto knife it’s a lot easier. This step should be done by an adult only.
You can see below the transformation from the sketch on the left to the cardboard piece cut out on the right.
Then pour some paint colors into separate containers and find a place to paint the cardboard. We used our kitchen floor. Newspaper put under your cardboard will sure make the clean up easier. We also used our concrete garage floor to paint. When you are working with larger shapes, using something like your garage space, gives you more space to work.
Use your imagination! However you paint your pieces is fine!! Don’t be afraid to make a mistake and have fun. If you want to reference an image, you can use a book or look online. For “Shawn the Sheep” I found an image online. Give you kids free reign and if they want to make a fantasy creature, that’s great. It’s about having fun and not worrying about mess or the “correctness” of how something looks. If you are inviting friends to do this project with you, remind them to wear clothing they can get ruined. This paint won’t come out.
Last step is to give a day to dry. If you have a spray can of clear coat, go ahead and spray the finished pieces, if not that is fine. We didn’t spray ours, and they lasted 9 months or so!
We decided to up our game with the “ZOO” idea, and made it a animal zoo scavenger hunt, hiding the animals around the yard. We invited others to come look around our yard to find all the animals we had created. This can be an excellent idea for a birthday party activity. To keep it interesting for a few weeks, we changed the positions of the animals in our yard. It was a great activity to have when the only activity open to residents, was to go outside and walk around.
Hope you enjoy this post and it gives you a new way to be creative with your kids, and with yourself!
Date Palms & Camels 