Art School: Tempera Paint Weavings

At the beginning of every class time together ( we had 5 days of 50 minutes each ), I read different bits of scripture to the kids involving color. That was a fun task looking up all of the verses with color references. 

We read about the ephod, Solomon's Temple, the new heaven, King Xerxes temple, Psalm 23 and a few others. How brilliant are the colors that the Lord has not only provided us with, but blessed us with. 

I read this from Exodus describing the tabernacle in the temple. I had the kids close their eyes and raise their hand each time they heard a color. My hope was to give them a visual of the place and to recognize how our God is in the details of the description, just as He is in the details of each of our lives. 

“Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. ² All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide.^[a] 3 Join five of the curtains together, and do the same with the other five. ⁴ Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. ⁵ Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other. ⁶ Then make fifty gold clasps and use them to fasten the curtains together so that the tabernacle is a unit.   Exodus 26:1-6

Now into our work. We are to the last day of our art school class showings. For our final project, we made 2 paintings out of tempera paint. 

We painted our first painting on white paper. I had the kids draw a step by step flower with oil pastels. This piece of paper was the loom for our weaving. 

The 2nd painting was a crazy, quick one and they could do whatever they wanted on it. After it dried the next day, I cut them into strips.

With the strips, I had precut aqua, purple, green and pink paper. They could weave with both or just their own paintings. 

After we wove all of the paper together, we went back and added frames out of the leftover strips. We also worked on added our signature to our work and talked about how important that is. 

I was so impressed with our these worked out. It was neat to see their work change shape and look over the 2 days while working on the project.

Some of the kids had a hard time with the weaving but they got the general idea. I will say, trying to weave the pieces together, it was like camouflage. 

 We serve a Creator God and what a gift it is for Him to give us the ability to create. 

May the Lord reveal more of Himself to you today through his colorful, vibrant, wondrous creation.