Art Zoo Project - Colorful Cats

Here is the first of hopefully MANY project ideas for those creative little creatures of yours that need an outlet for their artistic endeavors.  As you can see, my little creature, left to her own devices, just creates mud puddles and body art...

...so, today's art zoo project were these Colorful Cats made out of paper lunch bags.  Cats are a favorite subject for kids, and my little one LOVES her fuzzy brothers.  If you want to tie in a book to the project, you could read one of the Skippyjon Jones stories, some of my favorites!  If you want an art tie-in, google the crazy colored cats of Andy Warhol or the mischievous florescent green cats "Radioactive Cats" in the photography of Sandy Skoglund.

Materials we used:

-Tempera paint

-paper lunch bags

-newspaper (to stuff inside)

-googley eyes

-ribbon

-foam scraps (for nose)

-construction paper (for tails)

This project is simple and you can substitute other materials.  You can paint on the eyes or use buttons or paper scraps.  You can even have them color the bags with crayons first.  You could use textured surfaces and do crayon rubbings to create stripes or the look of fur on the cat.  The hard part is painting the bag, if you choose to paint it.  It is messy and it will get all over your child's hands and probably the table.  We painted all sides at once and then hung them up to dry by paper clipping them to a wire hanger from the door frame.  If you are a neat nick, you could flatten the back and paint sides a little at a time.  I also used a hair dryer to speed the drying process.  You could also cover the table with paper first, something I completely forgot to do, but, tempera washes off.  And my kid chooses to paint the table more than her project anyway!  After the bags are dry, ball up two pieces of newspaper, shove them into the head part and squeeze the neck (so violent!)  Tie off the necks with some ribbon or yard, or whatever you have.  You could even create a little tag for the cat and attach that to the "collar".  Spread out the bottom of the bag and it should stand on its own.  Cut out tails and staple or glue to the back.  Glue on noses (upside down triangles) and eyes.  For the ears, peel back two corners from the bottom of the bag (now the top of the head.)  Once those corners are nice and dry, they should stand up pretty well.  Name the cat something cute and keep it forever, or at least until the dog gets it!