3-5: Exploration + Processed FocusedThe work that you see here was created by preschool children ages 3 to 6 years old . This work was entirely created by them without specific instruction, just exploration of materials to what is known as process art. Most of the work featured is collaborative and progressive, meaning multiple children work on the project over a period of time.
Slime Painting, 2022. Glue, paint, baking soda, contact solution, paper on canvas.
1 | Serendipitous Slime: Our school year starts with sensory invitations both inside and outside of the classroom. Children are exploring cornstarch and water, also known as oobleck in the outdoor classroom. Sand and natural materials are occupying the light table inside the classroom and in the studio we are color mixing with finger paint on plexiglass. It is during this process that a child takes a brush from the nearby easels. The brush had been sitting in a container of clear glue for collaging, unknowingly she begins to use it in the fingerpaint. As she uses the brush in the paint, the paint becomes even more sticky and gelatinous to the point that the child is able to manipulate the material with her fingers. As she becomes engrossed by the material she has created, it dawns on me that she has serendipitously made slime!
And so… it begins, for the first half of the school year we explore slime. We make lots of slime, we play with the slime, we measure it, we mold it, we flatten it, we dry it, we collage with it and we paint with it.
We paint with it from the ceiling no less! Using a funnel + pendulum hung from the ceiling, children make one gigantic painting over time. They take turns pushing, pulling, spinning and squeezing slime from the pendulum. They make lakes and snakes with the slime. They squeeze dots and notice air bubbles and how the colors change. Then one child decides to add paper dots that we have been using in our collages. Another child decides to cover all the dots up with slime. We work on our enormous slime painting until winter break.
“Slime is sticky, cold. It’s enormous super sticky”
Untitled, 2023. Glue, paint, salt on canvas.
A World of Glue
2 | A world of glue: When we come back from winter break the slime also takes a break, but not the glue. As we begin to explore watercolors… and add salt to the watercolor and then clear glue. We eventually add white paint to the glue and shaving cream. We play with white puffy paint, clear glue and salt. And the children begin to tell stories while they create. They make roads and rivers, snow and icicles on small blue canvases.
Then the canvas gets a little bigger and then it gets EVEN bigger! The children start by painting it one color, they choose blue. Once the entire canvas is blue, they ask for some puffy paint and sprinkles (salt). They use the puffy paint and glue on the canvas with salts. Over the next few weeks children layer glue and salt on the large canvas. While most children add… others remove, peeling off layers of glue, salt and paint to make “slime” then they reattach the layers with more glue.
“Here are so many icicles. The river is going through the town. I am trying to cover it (glue) with snow (salt) to make ice. I am having a snow storm”
“We pulled the picture apart and now we made another picture”
Papier-Mache Relief, 2023. Glue, paint, shredded paper, tulle, newspaper, string, watercolor and paint chips.
Lots of Paper
“Art has the role in education of helping children become like themselves instead of more like everyone else”
3 | More glue and lots of paper: In the background of the studio, when children were not creating with slime or telling stories with glue and salt, they were painting with brushes and paint rollers and collaging with strips of paper. I thought this might be a good time to introduce them to paper mâché, (that is a deconstructed version of it). Providing them with watered down glue, paint rollers and strips of paper on poster board. Children quickly began rolling on glue. But they still weren’t done with squeezing out puffy paint and adding salt. So we continued with our glue and puffy paint but instead of salt I offered them shredded paper. Once the poster board could no longer hold the weight of the materials we switched to a large canvas.
As they began adding materials to the canvas, children often pretended to make food products like cakes and pizzas, adding sauce (paint) and cheese (shredded paper). They made rain with the glue and snow with the paper. As they added paper we found other things to add too, like paper doilies and coffee filters from earlier explorations. Some children felt the canvas needed some color. So we added watercolors and pastel and white washes. One child even added dry tempera paint flakes from the paint easels. String and fabric tulle were added as well.
