Immy received a Spiral Art Kit for Christmas and it wasn’t long before our dining table was covered in sheets of paper adorned with gorgeous spiral shapes of all different sizes. When we were talking about what to do with all of the spirals we noticed that many of them looked a lot like flowers and so it was decided that the shapes were perfect for a Spring garden artwork! The final result might just be one of my favourite pieces of children’s art ever!
How to Make a Spiral Art Garden
You will need:
- A spiral art or spirograph kit
- Watercolour palette
- Paintbrushes – both fine and chunky
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Acrylic paint
- Canvas or art board
To make:
1. Firstly you need to make lots and lots of spirals of all different sizes. Use biro instead of pencil or felt tipped pens to make your spiral so that the colour doesn’t smudge or run when you paint them. We have a cheaper spiral art kit but a proper spirograph kit would work too – though the proper kit can be more difficult for young children to manipulate.
2. Paint your spirals all the colours of the rainbow using a watercolour paint palette and a fine brush. I love that everyone in our family contributed to this artwork, helping to paint the spirals! Once they are dry, cut your spirals out. Immy and I did this together.
3. Prepare your canvas. We were painting over an old artwork, which explains the circles you can see under the white paint. We weren’t bothered by them as we knew our collage would cover up those shapes. We painted a basic landscape of grass and sky with child friendly acrylic paint. Immy took great delight in explaining the concept of a horizon to me, something she has been learning about in art at school.
4. Once the paint is dry it’s time to glue on your spirals.
We used a glue stick and were careful to make sure that we applied glue all the way to the edges so that our spirals would lay down flat.
As we arranged our spirals we talked about perspective – how things that are closer to us can appear larger than items in the distance, and so we placed many of our largest spirals at the bottom of the artwork and the smaller ones towards the top.
I can’t tell you how happy this spiral art garden makes me. Whether I look at it as a whole…
…or closer up, it is bright and beautiful and doesn’t fail to make me smile! Now to decide where to hang it!
Did you have a spirograph as a child?
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Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
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