I Heart Doilies

Valentine's Day is almost upon us and the school is buzzing with V-Day projects galore.

Maybe it an art teacher thing, but I love Valentine's Day and all low key holidays like Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, etc. So much cuteness... boundless possibilities for art projects! I came across this art activity from Patty Palmer, art teacher and blogger extraordinaire, at http://www.deepspacesparkle.com and decided to give it a whirl with my first graders today!

First, you gather up some fantastic, old school doilies. Then, you basically use the doilies as a stencil and paint (using watercolor or puck tempera) through the doilies- quite special.

As you go on and on, continuing to add more hearts in varying sizes and repeat the design, I tried to encourage overlapping and cropping to create an open composition.

Patience is needed in this project! The first graders like to work fast and I encouraged them to "see the holes" and "look closely" as they were working.

I found that students that used more watery and darker paint had better results.

Would I do this again next year? Oh, yes please.

It's a great make and take project for that week before the holiday weekend when the students have visions of heart-shaped lollipops in their heads!

Much love😍