Materials

• Canvas – We used a 12”x16” canvas board.
  • If you do not have canvas, sturdy paper or cardboard will work just fine.
• Acrylic paint – the primary colors, white and black
• Paper plate to mix your paints
• Paintbrush, water bucket and paper towels
• Buttons – variety of sizes and colors
  • If you don’t have buttons, you can cut out a variety of sized circles from construction paper.
  • You can also use cotton balls and q-tips to paint dots within the circle (like Pointillism painting!), just make sure the paint is different from your background color.
• Glue
• String/yarn
• Pencil
• Cotton balls (optional)

Instructions

• Paint your canvas – be creative with your design and color choices!
• When the canvas is dry, use a pencil and draw a circle at the top. This will be your hot air balloon.
• Arrange the buttons within the circle. Glue the buttons in place and leave to dry.
• Use string/yarn to create the basket of your hot air balloon and glue in place.
• At the bottom of your canvas, using any color paint you’d like, write out your favorite inspirational message.
  • This project was inspired by our Dreams, Memories and Archetypes exhibit, so our phrase is “Dream Big!”
• For added creativity, use cotton balls to create clouds in the sky around your hot air balloon.

       

Materials

• Paper – any size paper will do, but we recommend thicker paper like watercolor paper.
• Watercolors – we used liquid watercolors, but a watercolor palette is fine.
• Crayons or oil pastels
• Pencil and eraser
• Black sharpie
• Watercolor paintbrush
• Water bucket
• Paper towels
• Newspaper

Instructions

• Using a pencil, draw 6-8 circles within each other decreasing in size.
• Draw a pattern or design within each circle.
  • Make sure to repeat the pattern/design all the way around the circle. You will begin to see new shapes!
• Draw some wavy lines to represent string tying the dreamcatcher and feathers together.
• To draw feathers, think of an elongated eye/almond shape. Your feather can either have a round or pointed tip at the end – it is up to you!
  • Draw two lines down the center to represent the rachis, which is the middle part of a feather.
  • To draw small separations in your feather, draw v-shapes along the sides and erase the outer line.
  • Add clusters of lines together to create texture and embellishments.
• When you are done drawing, use a black sharpie to go over all the pencil. Erase any leftover pencil from your paper.
• Add more details and highlights with either oil pastels or crayons.
  • If you are using crayons, we recommend white crayons only as they give the best results.
  • Limit your color palette to 3-4 colors.
  • Make sure not to color in the whole dreamcatcher!
• Use watercolor to paint over the whole drawing.
  • Painting can be messy! Cover your workstation with newspaper to better contain the mess.
  • We like using liquid watercolor as the colors blend together better.

 

 

Materials

• Clay (both a white color and at least one other color)
  • The Museum uses Model Magic, but you can also make your own clay
• To make homemade clay mix a 2:1 ratio of corn starch & hair conditioner
  • In a bowl, mix the corn starch and conditioner until it forms a ball. Make a smaller batch, or divide the first batch, and add food coloring. Store each ball of clay in a plastic bag or air tight container until you are ready to use.

Instructions

• Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who is sometimes referred to as the ‘princess of polka dots.’ Set aside some time to research a little bit about her and her artwork.
• Collect your clay or make your own using the recipe above.
• Using the white colored clay, sculpt your base shape. We made pumpkins inspired by Kusama’s work but you can create any shape you want.
• Time for polka dots! Using the clay you added food coloring to, pinch off small pieces to roll and squish into round dots. Place the dots all over your sculpture to create the polka-dot effect Kusama is famous for.
• Let dry and repeat! Make as many of these sculptures as you want.