Ask A Los Angeles Expert: Easy Crafts To Do With Your Kids

Arts and crafts projects using supplies commonly found in the home and requiring minimal parent supervision are usually those parents like best. P.S. ARTS has projects for the young artist at heart. No special expertise or artistic talent is required for these, just a desire to create. Dr. Kristin Paglia, Executive Director, Education & Programs for P.S. ARTS, recommends five to-go projects that are based on the work of a diverse selection of master artists and are designed to teach kids about the world of fine art while making a creative product. You can see dozens more fun P.S. ARTS projects on the website, along with video tutorials, images and step-by-step instructions.

Dr. Kristin Paglia is part of the P.S. ARTS organization to help improve the lives of children in Southern and Central California by providing year-long arts education to underserved public schools and communities. Her deep commitment to overseeing the quality of the arts program curriculum and the P.S. ARTS Teaching Artist training keeps her on her toes in numerous government educational policy and advocacy groups throughout California. She holds Master's Degrees in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA and Arts Education from Harvard University, where she also earned a Doctorate from Harvard in cognitive developmental psychology. Dr. Paglia was also most recently appointed to the CREATE CA (Core Reforms Engaging Arts to Educate) Joint Task Force to help create a blueprint for arts education in California.

Dr. Kristin Paglia has a passion for social and intellectual nurturing through the arts. She believes that the arts is the key to keeping students in school, preventing delinquency and raising productive members of a thriving civil society. Dr. Paglia suggests five fun and enlightening art projects that kids can do at home. Say goodbye to the days of pasting macaroni on a piece of colored construction paper.

Rangoli comes from the Sanskrit words "rang" (color) and "aavalli" (row), and is a traditional Indian art form of decorating the floor in one’s home with colored powders. Rangoli are very common during Diwali, the Festival of Lights, which is a celebration of our inner light and knowledge that outshines ignorance and evil. You will need paper plates, white glue, a pencil, white flour, herbs, spices, flower petals, shredded leaves and/or small dry beans. Use the pencil to draw your Rangoli design, trace the pattern with white glue and sprinkle on plain white flour, add a thin layer of glue in the spaces between the lines and sprinkle with colored powder made by mixing the flour with the herbs, spices or other colorful materials.

Made popular by 19th century French painter George Seurat, pointillism is a technique in which small dots of pure color are applied carefully to form an image. Rather than mixing colors on a palette, pointillism relies on the viewer’s eyes and mind to blend colors together. You can create your own pointillist painting using a sheet of white paper, some cotton swabs, a marker and a basic watercolor set. Lightly draw out your picture on the paper with the marker, then dip cotton swabs in the watercolors (one swab per color) and dot the page to fill in your design. Remember to make new colors by placing two pure colors next to one another (e.g. red next to blue will appear purple, and yellow next to blue will appear green).

You can use a piece of corrugated cardboard, some tempera paint, sand and small pebbles and a ballpoint pen to make a stunning star-scape in the style of Canadian artist Paterson Ewen. Instead of using paper or canvas as the base of his paintings, Ewen cuts planks of wood, carves lines into them and paints on top, mixing in sand and rocks to give the effect of dust and stars. Recreate this effect by using a ballpoint pen to draw a spiral on a piece of cardboard, paint over the spiral and let it dry, then add a thin layer of glue and lightly dust the sand and rocks over the painting to create the effect of stardust, and, finally, shake off the excess sand and rocks and add a few yellow flecks of paint to the background for stars.

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Paper marbling is a type of printmaking technique that creates a cool, swirly design, just like the inside of a glass marble. Paper marbling artists drip paint onto a pan of liquid, swirl it around to create a design, then press paper onto the liquid surface to create a pattern. Find a piece of white paper, a toothpick or sharpened pencil, a can of shaving cream, aluminum foil, a couple of index cards and some food dye. Squirt a large amount of shaving cream on the aluminum foil and spread it out evenly using the index card, drip food dye onto the shaving cream (one drop at a time), and use the toothpick to swirl the colors together until you see a pattern you like, then gently press the paper down on the surface of the shaving cream and slowly lift it up. After a minute or two, carefully scrape the excess shaving cream off the paper using the index card to reveal an elegantly marbled sheet of stationary.

Impressionism is a style of painting characterized by short, fluid brushstrokes and vibrant colors that create the idea, or impression, of a subject. Impressionist painters, like French artist Claude Monet, were also very interested in depicting natural light at different times of the day as it washes over a scene. Collect white paper, a watercolor set, a roll of masking tape and some paper towels. Tear the masking tape into various lengths and apply it vertically to the paper (like trees in a forest), then mix the watercolors with lots of water to create a light wash of color over the tape and paper, being sure to use several different colors and covering all of the white space. Once the paper has dried, carefully remove the tape to reveal the white bark of birch trees set against the afternoon sky, then use your brush and the black watercolor to make details on the bark.

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