Eric Carle Inspired Butterfly Art

First of all, I have to give a shout out for an awesome resource for teachers and parents who are interested in doing creative art experiences with their kids. Kid Art Lit is run by two creative moms who promote joining quality books with process art experiences (two of my favorite things!). In addition to running a subscription service, they host weekly challenges on Instagram with so many great ideas for projects (#kidartlit), they do live demonstrations, and have a group on Facebook. Check them out! I was inspired after watching one of their video demonstrations to do this Eric Carle project with my kids, and I'm so glad I did!! It was so fun. This became our culminating project for our butterfly life cycle study this year.

Step One: Paint
We watched a video of Eric Carle painting and creating textures on tissue paper, so we tried out that medium also. Knowing the tissue paper would be fragile and possible frustrating to work with, I also ironed some coffee filters for something slightly thicker. We used different kinds of materials to add texture to the paint, including our fingers. :)

Step Two: Cut

We let our paintings dry until our next class, and then started the cutting process. I pre-cut some shapes with butterflies in mind, but wanted to involve the kids in thinking about the shapes they wanted or could see in Eric Carle's design. We also used hole punchers to create circles and holes. 

Step Three: Design and Glue
To make this process extra special, we used canvas as the backdrop for our butterflies, but you could easily use paper as well. We started by selecting the pieces we thought would be best for the head and body of our butterflies, and placed that in the middle of our canvas. I placed glue mixed with a little water in jars with paintbrushes, and I modeled how to spread the glue on the canvas first, place the pieces, and then paint lightly over it again with the glue.

I loved this stage because every student became engaged in the process for awhile, and each butterfly turned out so differently. I couldn't resist joining in and creating my own butterfly as well, it was just such a fun process.

 You really could make anything with this process, and I'm already looking forward to trying it out again sometime soon.