Create Your Own Palm Frond Rudolph

Today I’d like to recognize the insane snow storm that hit the north eastern US this weekend with this tropical Christmas craft. I do not live in the south (though I was not affected by the storm, either) so these photos are courtesy of my mother. Not to worry, though; I’ve made my share of palm frond Rudolphs. I won’t steer you wrong.

Supplies Needed:

Palm Frond
Googley Eyes
Red Pom
Glue Gun and Glue Stick
I’m not sure why there is white glue and a glue gun in this picture. You could use either so take your pick. Begin by collecting your supplies, including taking a palm frond from a palm tree. If the trees have recently been pruned, you may find the perfect frond on the ground just waiting for you to turn it into a masterpiece. If not, you’ll want an adult to help you retrieve one. Make sure the frond comes from the right kind of palm tree. See the picture below for help. (Yes, that’s my parent’s back yard... lucky, huh?)
Attach the goggley eyes and the pom to the palm frond. If you use hot glue you won’t have to wait more than a moment for it to dry but if you use white glue be sure everything is firmly attached before you handle your Rudolph.
If you wish to hang it, hot glue a loop of ribbon to the back. Hang and enjoy!

Thanks, Mom, for the lovely photos!

Click here for more Christmas crafts.

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Paint Your Own Christmas Ornament

Today’s Christmas craft is a simple one, guaranteed to produce beautiful and unique ornaments every time. And it can be enjoyed by crafters of all ages.

Supplies Needed:

Glass ball ornament
Glass paint
Yes, that’s it. Gather your supplies and cover your workspace with newspaper. I chose to use red, green, and white paints and I think my ornament came out well. You can use any colors and glass paint comes in more colors that you can imagine. Silver and gold would be good additions to any ornament. Go crazy!

Remove the top of the ornament, the part that allows you to hang it on the tree, and set it aside.

Hold the ornament so the opening is angled, though still with an upright tilt. Squeeze some paint into the ornament so it runs down the inside. Glass paint is rather thick and will take a while to make it to the bottom of the ornament. There’s no need to wait for it to finish its journey before adding the next color. Squeeze as many colors into the ball as you’d like, rotating the ornament each time for a paint-free space.

Now cover the opening with your thumb and gently tap the ornament against your other palm to speed the paint along. Turn the ornament so the paint runs across the entire inside and there is no clear space left. Add more paint if you need to.

Place the top back on and enjoy your one-of-a-kind ornament. Add a piece of ribbon as a hanger if you choose, or just use a metal one.
A side note: You can use regular craft paint for this project since you won’t be washing the ornament or eat off of it, however, eventually the paint will begin to separate. The ornament pictured below was painted about ten years ago, by my estimation, and you can see that pigment (that is the color) is separating from the binder (the liquid that the color is mixed with to create paint). I still like it though, and hang it on my tree every year.
Click the following links for a paper ornament project, and a candy cane ornament project.

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Create Your Own Mondrian Masterpiece

Piet Mondrian wanted to find the heart of the things around him so that he could paint it onto his canvas. As he grew older, he art became simpler. The result, for you, is an easy-to-copy style. Today, learn to make your own Mondrian-inspired painting.

Supplies Needed:

Heavy sketch paper (white)
Paints in red, yellow, blue, and black
Paintbrush
Water (for rinsing the brush)
Ruler
Construction paper
Scissors
Pencils

Begin by drawing lines on your paper with your pencil. Use your ruler to make sure the lines are straight horizontal or vertical by measuring from the sides and marking several points along the line before drawing it. Use your imagination to decide where to draw the lines.

Next, fill in some of the squares formed by your intersecting lines with red, yellow, or blue paint. Make sure to leave some of the squares white. If your colors aren’t perfectly within the lines, that’s okay; you’ll paint your black lines next and they’ll cover the edges.

You will now paint over the pencil lines with black paint. The other colors need to dry first and in the meantime, you can make a stencil for painting the black lines. This will make them look crisp.

Cut a sheet of construction paper in half. Place the outer edges together. The edges that you just cut will be to the outside now. Cut a strip from another sheet of construction paper and then cut the strip in half. You’ll use this strip to connect the two halves of your construction paper.

You want to leave an opening about half an inch thick so measure a half an inch somewhere in the middle of the strip and mark it off. Do the same to the second strip. Now tape one strip to each end of the half-sheets of construction paper with the straight edges faces into the gap.

Mark the center of the gap by drawing a line on each strip. Now line up the pencil lines on your painting with these lines and use your stencil to paint black lines where the pencil lines used to be. You may need to fill in your lines a few at a time and let them dry before filling in a few more. You don’t want to set your stencil in wet paint.

Alternatively, you could use a thick black marker to draw the lines but paint will look better.

After you have painted all the lines, your masterpiece is complete! Let it dry, hang, and enjoy.

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Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian was born in the Netherlands in 1872. He was influenced by many artistic styles and even helped found an artistic movement called De Stijl. He died in 1944, have created about 250 paintings in his lifetime.

The paintings that Piet Mondrian is most famous for are rectangles of white and primary colors, dissected by black lines. He did not always paint this way, however. Mondrian’s first paintings depicted scenes found in real life. They were done in a style similar to impressionism. As his style grew and changed, he stopped using any colors besides the three primaries: red, yellow, and blue. The painting shown below is Avond. This is the first painting in which Mondrian used only primary colors but you can still see the influence of impressionism.

Mondrian soon became interested in cubism. Cubism, which I have not yet posted about, is an artistic style in which the subject is broken into meaningful pieces and rearranged in a new order to show the most important parts of the object. The painting shown below, Still Life with Ginger Pot, was painted by Mondrian in the cubist style. Because of the influence of cubism, Mondrian’s paintings became more and more abstract. Mondrian moved to Paris in 1912 so he could further study cubism.
In 1914 Mondrian returned home just before World War I broke out. He was stuck there for the duration of the war (1914-1919). During this time he became friends with some other artists and together they began the new movement, De Stijl, which I posted about yesterday. The movement was called De Stijl because that was the name of the journal that Mondrian and his friends started. They called the movement neoplasticism and today both names are correct.
The members of the De Stijl movement were searching to paint an even more honest truth than the cubists. They believed the essence, the foundation of all things could be found in the simplest form: straight lines and primary colors. So Mondrian began painting pieces like the one shown above, Composition.

Tomorrow I’ll teach you to make your own Mondrian-inspired painting.

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Edible Mondrian Painting,
Create Your Own Mondrian Masterpiece

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De Stijl

De Stijl (sounds like ‘duh style’) was an artistic movement in the Netherlands from 1917 to around 1928. Artists such as Piet Mondrian, who you’ll learn about tomorrow, wanted to simplify the subjects of their painting as much as possible until they were left with only lines and simple colors. They used only red, yellow, and blue, and black, white, and grey.

De Stijl was confined to the Netherlands because the country did not involve itself in World War I so the Dutch couldn’t leave the country during the war. The art produced in other countries still influenced the de stijl movement, though.

In this 1921 painting, entitled Composition, you can see the simple colors and lines. Notice how few black lines there are in this painting, yet how beautiful the effect.
These ideas were used not only in paintings, but in architecture as well. Look at this house, for instance, designed by Gerrit Rietveld. It is completely black and white with details in primary colors, and uses only rectangles formed by horizontal and vertical lines. The inside also uses simple lines. If you’ve ever seen a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building, you may be thinking that this house reminds you of his work. You’d be right to think that because Wright’s designs from the 1900s and 1910s influenced the later work of these Dutch architects. (You’ll learn about Wright next week.)

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