Young children often love it when you trace around their body and here are five suggestions for getting the most out of this fun, creative experience (and the ideas aren’t just limited to the lil ones!)
Drawing: Because of the large surface area of body outlines, it is a good idea to think carefully about what type of drawing utensils will make drawing and colouring quick and easy (especially for young children). Felt tipped markers, crayons or oil pastels will take less time than pencils. It can also be fun to add a paint wash over crayons or oil pastels for a colourful crayon resist effect.
Painting: Painting is probably the quickest way to decorate a body outline. Try tracing everyone in the family or your child in a range of different body positions to make a family of ‘people’ to decorate your wall.
Fabric collage: Use up scraps of fabric by creating clothes on your body outline. We used diluted child-friendly PVA glue to keep ours in place.
Magazine collage: Bigger kids can use magazine pictures to create a collage effect on their body outline.
Go abstract: Of course, you don’t have to outline the entire body. Tracing smaller body parts means children have less area to fill which opens you to a greater range of creative techniques. Why not go retro with some brightly coloured colour blocking! Using oil pastels, Immy and I took one hand and arm each and I love the results.
You’ll find further creative inspiration in my e-book, Art Not Craft: The Process of Learning Creatively. Designed to give parents the confidence to embrace art making with simple art making suggestions, advice on minimising the mess factors, materials lists and information about why making art is so important to your child’s learning.
For the next 2 weeks you can save $4 on your copy of Art Not Craft by entering the discount code ‘OUTLINE’ at checkout. Be quick, ends 5pm AEDST, 15th November 2011.
Does your child enjoy tracing body outlines?
Read more of Christie's adventures at http://childhood101.com.
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Interesting! Thanks for sharing!~
For a time, we had rolls of giant body tracings decorated in various ways after reading a children’s book where the class in the story makes them. So much fun was had making and decorating these tracing in our home, just as the child you have shown creating here. This really is a fun project for children you’ve shared with your readers.
This body art is such a lovely idea. So happy to have found your site
I love these ideas. great for kids of various ages!
love the hands and arms- we do “virtual vacations” and this is a great way to study the henna art and tribal body paint without actually painting on the kiddos! (unless I find just the right totally non-toxic stuff- then they might actually prefer to paint themselves!)
I love the idea of creating a henna style/tribal body artwork on an outline.
I started a local Children’s Art Group and this is one of the things i’ve had on my “to do” list for awhile now. This gives me some GREAT ideas to use when we do this! Thank you!!!
http://www.playcreateexplore.com/p/childrens-art-group.html
I love the idea of your art group, Jessica, it sounds like so much fun!
love this! One of my little art students requested his body outline for our next class!
cheers
Candice
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