Eric Carle Style Art

This week when I exploring some new art options for Little BBQ I came across Eric Carle's web-site where he has short videos on how to make the caterpillar found in the Very Hungry Caterpillar. How cool is that? I thought that the technique was a little too difficult for Little BBQ and a few too many steps at this age, so I modified the technique to have few steps for him. The modified technique did not have the rich textures that Eric Carle's caterpillar had, but it was still a lot of fun and came out nice.

For the modified Eric Carle caterpillar technique we used colored tissue paper instead of white. This saved us from taking a white sheet of tissue paper and having to paint it a solid color. I also pre cut the shapes for Little BBQ since I did not think that he had the patience to cut delicate tissue paper without tearing it, so this saved us another step. We taped out caterpillar onto a piece of string to hang on the wall because the caterpillar was too large to fit on a piece of paper, but you can easily glue a smaller caterpillar on a piece of paper.

For reading about caterpillars we read Waiting for Wings by Louis Elhart along with the Very hungry Caterpillar because Waiting for Wings went into more detail about butterfly anatomy and was a little more detailed on the life cycle of butterfly than the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I also like that the book was simple enough for Little BBQ to read out loud to me. The sentences are short and each page contains a single sentence making the reading bite size.

Materials

Colored tissue paper
Scissors
Paint
Dish
Water
Paint brush
Bubble wrap, small piece
String
Tape
Glue
Eye
Marker

Directions

1. Cut the tissue paper into caterpillar parts. You can use circles or another shape for the body and head of a caterpillar. You can have the child do this part if they are gentle and coordinated or you can have an adult do this part.
2. Put a little paint in a dish and add a little water. Mix well.
3. Have the child paint a design on the tissue paper shapes. Eric Carle usually does zig zag lines. My son did blobs.
4. Allow the tissue paper to dry.
5. Add a little more paint and water to a dish and mix well. Use a different color than you did with the first paint.
6. Add dots to the caterpillar parts.
7. Allow to dry.
8. Add a little more paint and water to a dish and mix well. This should be a unique color that has not been used before.
9. Dip the bubble wrap in the paint and stamp the paint on the caterpillar pieces.
10. All the tissue paper to dry.
11. Arrange the caterpillar in the desired order. Flip the pieces over. Measure a string two inches longer than the tissue paper pieces.
12. Tape the tissue paper pieces to the string. Leave 1" on either side of the caterpillar.
13. Flip the caterpillar back over and glue an eye on the head and with a marker draw a mouth.
14. Hang up your creation!

Posted on Kids Get Arty