Toddler Art: Paint Like Picasso!

This was the first Toddler Art theme I have done using an artist theme. It was a bit more challenging, but I was able to come up with ideas that were easy for toddlers and challenged them a little bit at the same time.

I read a board book, Oooh! Picasso by Mil Niepold and Jeanyves Verdu. It has pictures of some of Picasso's work and a message of imagination with art.

After reading, I explained our two crafts for the day. For our first craft, I supplied everyone with sponges and clothespins with pom poms to paint with primary colors. The little ones had fun mixing their colors and it was good practice for them. When finished, they slid their paintings into plastic covers that had a Picasso-like face on them.

For our second craft, the kids glued different eyes, ears, noses, and mouths to their faces to make a unique, Picasso-like portrait. I heard a lot of parents going over the different parts of the face to get their child to understand body parts. I was happy to hear this because I was hoping the parents would use this craft as an opportunity to explain parts of their face. They also had the option to color their pictures.

Afterwards, we had some playtime so the group could interact with each other.

Other Books:

Painting With Picasso board book by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober

Preschool Picasso: Paint Like Picasso!

I had a great turnout for this program and it was a fun, unique theme. It was a little bit more of challenge to come up with ideas for Picasso that weren't too hard and books that weren't too long, but there was enough to make it work and a success.

I read Picasso's Trousers by Nicholas Allan. I paper clipped some pages together to make the book even shorter and avoid some of the pictures of Picasso's famous art since it might be too "adult" for the kids.

For our first Picasso inspired craft, we made Picasso faces using paint primary colors and cutouts of different eyes, mouths, noses, and ears. In the book, it is explained that Picasso painted portraits from both the side and the front of faces at the same time, so we did that with our paintings with the help of what I cut out.

For our second craft, we did a Picasso inspired guitar art project using patterned paper squares, a cut out guitar, some string, and a circle. This was a simple cubism art project to focus on Picasso's cubism technique.

A few of the group stuck around to paint some more and I reminded everyone of our time change for next month.