I first came across this image on Pinterest from kids-finelines. I am always on the hunt for cat art. We have two kitties and so the kids are always excited to make and do anything with cats. Even better, they are inspired by a real artist!

Meet Denise Fiedler. Her medium is paste and paper. She uses vintage printed pages to create her images. Her inspirations come from traditional and iconic architecture, fashion, dogs, cats and people. I find her work to be lovely in a simple and fresh way.

Here are some examples of her work.

Now that we have been inspired, lets get to work!

What you need:

– construction paper for back ground

– glue

– we used recycled newspaper

– tempera paint

– brushes

– water cup for cleaning brushes and paper towel

– paper plat for a pallet

-scissors

First things first. I keep this piece of cardboard folded in my pantry. It protects my table from all sorts of projects. I highly suggest covering your work surface. You don’t want to fuss at your kiddos about being messy when making a mess is the nature of art making.

First we cut out the base shapes for our kitties. A body, circle head and two triangle ears. My boys are age 3 and not really developmentally ready to cut out shapes. But I figured I would let them give it a go anyway. They managed to each cut out one shape and then handed it over to me to finish. My daughter is 6 so she did all her own work.

Next I had them each choose a back ground color. I helped my little ones with the glue stick and they placed their pieces. Then we got out the paint! I like to have an example of what we are doing up for the kids to look at. Sort of a reminder of what’s going on.

I am so happy with the results and they are super proud of their work. I will say that as a parent you have to really take a step back and let them create. The whole point is to let them make mistakes and choices and not to impose your idea of what it should look like. Be free and all that. I will admit, I some times have to walk out of the room. But I always love their work more if it is totally their own.

They loved it so much they had to make another. Success!

I lost one to the joys of cutting up paper for some time. Getting those Kindergarten skills down.

These were simple, easy to make and educational. I can see us making lots more Denise Fiedler inspired art collages. Maybe using watercolors next….. Looks like we will have plenty of time since we are currently being snowed in. Again.

Happy art making!

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Check out Mary Organizes for a link up list of other great kid activities! HERE