A Patriotic Art Project



Here is a fun art project that can be done for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July with patriotic colors, or for any day with other colors!  All you need is some painters tape and some paper that you can easily remove the tape from.  In our case, we had a bunch of paper that had been donated from somewhere that worked.  It looks and feels like pieces of poster board because it is stiff and glossy on one side.  The best thing to do is to try it with what you have and see what will work best.  Our pieces of paper were about 12 inches by 12 inches.


 
Painter's masking tape is usually blue and removes easily.


I lucked out with the painter's tape because I happened to find it at the local dollar store!  So I just bought about five rolls of it in the hopes that we would have plenty and would not run out.  My class has not yet had a chance to actually try this project out, because my volunteer didn't show up to help out on the day that we were going to do it.  But after we try it, I am going to update the blog with how many yards of tape it took to complete the project with the whole class, given that they started with a paper that was approximately 12" square.

Since I assume that the children are going to need help ripping the pieces of tape off, my intention is to have them complete this project as a one-on-one pull out to be done by a volunteer.   I have a certain volunteer that loves to do "messy" art projects, especially those that are done on a one-on-one basis, so I think that this will work out well, once her schedule works out to return to the classroom.

Anyway, I completed a few samples of my own and took pictures of the steps to be done along the way, and this is how the art project is done.  First, the child needs to tape down stripes in a random fashion as shown.

 
Adding the tape, step 1.


I decided to have all of the stripes on my papers "criss-cross" like an X, but I am looking forward to seeing the creative twists that they put on their own projects!


 
Adding the tape, step 2.


After you add the tape, it's time to start painting.


 
Painting, Step 1.


I decided to paint all of the blue first, and then add in the red.  I tried to leave every other space open for the red.


 
Painting, Step 2.


I wondered what else I might be able to do to it, so I thought I might add some finger painted swirls to the blue.


 
Adding Finger Painted Swirls


Then it's time to add the red paint.




After that, we found that it was best to remove the tape immediately rather than let it dry.  It was harder to remove the painter's tape once the painting was dry for some reason.


 
Tape Removed, Project Completed!


The children watched me try a couple of samples in the classroom during their playtime, (although not this one.)   You should have heard their squeals of delight when the tape came off!  I really can't wait to let them each try it themselves!!!  I hope you have fun with it, if you choose to try it.  If you would like to see a short video of how to make this project, click here.  I posted it on my HeidiSongs Facebook page.



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