Halloween Art

Halloween is slowly becoming more popular in Australia. It's never going to be what it is in the US yet it's now not unusual to dress up, go trick or treating or even carve a pumpkin (pumpkins have only been found in the supermarkets over the past few years, they are expensive as they are imported).  I usually have pumpkin envy as I see all the cool things that are done with them in the US when we only have a few expensive ones to choose from.  

I love decorating the studio in the Halloween theme and add a few new decorations each year.  We always do some Halloween themed art.

This is what we did this year across my classes:

Spooky Starry Nights

Idea from Cassie Stephens.

What you need:

• Black paper
• Purple, blue and grey paint
• Oil pastels (especially white)
• Black paint 

How to:

• Paint the paper in purples,blues and greys (if short of time as I was in most classes you can do this step for them and just hand out the prepared paper)
• Get the children to add stars, swirls etc to the sky
• Add a moon
• Add a spooky Halloween scene 

The Results:

Scary....

 

Kusama Pumpkins

Based on the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

What you need:

• Coloured paper
• Cotton tips or end of paint brushes
• Black paint
• Pencils and erasers
• Black markers

How to:

• Demonstrate how to draw a pumpkin
• Get the children to draw their pumpkin outline in pencil then go over with black marker
• Add dots using a cotton tip or end of a paint brush

The Results:

Cool!!

 

Water pistol Blood Paintings

I must admit not everyone would get away with doing this.  It could be viewed as unethical or gruesome.  However I run my own business and decided it was more fun than either of those things.  The kids LOVED the process.

What you need:

• White paper 
• Watered down red paint
• Water pistols
• Pipettes
• Squeeze bottles
• Easel

How to:

• Fill the water pistols and squeeze bottles with the red paint.  I found that the easiest way to fill the water pistols was with a pipette.
• Stick paper to easel and supply the children with a water pistol
• Get them to also add drips from the top with the squeeze bottles

TIPS:  Do this outside!  Limit the number of water pistols per child, some will go nuts and use all of them leaving none for the others.  This is great fun big scale, check out the one we did on a big white board below.

The Results:

Looks like someone was murdered, yet it was fun...

 

 

Sugar skull stencil art

We did these last year as well, yet it was so popular I decided I would offer it as an option again.  Last year the children sprayed their own stencils yet this year I decided to prepare them first so the children just decorated them.  The skulls are sprayed with silver spray paint and the details added with oil pastel.  Last year we also added feathers, sequins etc.

 

Preschool Halloween Art

Check out what I did with the preschoolers.  Pumpkin spice play doh monsters.  Toilet roll mummies.  Halloween sensory bin.  Potion making.  We also did the water pistol blood paintings.

     

 

 

Cheers

FIONA