Mandala.

Another activity I did with the kids was coloring mandalas. I downloaded thirteen different mandalas, and had the kids color them with crayons or colored pencils (the waxier, the better). When they had finished coloring them, they had to wrinkle the paper with the mandala.
Afterwards the mandalas were covered with tempera paint, and let to dry. The idea was to have the paint get into the cracks that was done when the paper was wrinkled. This technique here is called "crackeling".
Once the paint was dry, the mandala is "washed" to remove the excess paint. We took the mandalas and the boys to the bathrooms (here the bathrooms are outside, with the sinks in plain view). The day was windy and the boy's mandalas were ruined. So I took the girls to the teacher's bathroom (with only one sink!) and had them wash the mandalas one by one. These came out great.
After letting them dry, they were cut along the line and pasted to colored posterboard.
The boys made some new ones, but didn't want to wash them.
Whew! Kinda long explanation. Hope I didn't bore you.
Anyway, here are the photos of the process.

Coloring a square mandala.

This one looked like a snake's skin.
(At least up close.)

After the wrinkling, tempera paint is applied.

We used different paint colors.

Here the mandalas are drying after washing. This one
has red paint.

Purple....

...and green
(pretty obvious).

These two were not washed....

....but these were.





All lined up.
We think they came out pretty cool.

Kids also enjoyed this activity. I give the boys three cheers for being great sports, and coloring again after their first try was ruined.
Tomorrow another activity.
Hope I don't get you snoring with all this art attack, though if you're suffering insomnia, you have just found the cure.
Have a great beginning of week!