Camping: Campfire Inspired Art

Despite our love for tea parties and dresses, my family also loves going camping! We are really excited to do some fun camping activities. Our first project is a “process over product” piece.

What is “process over product”? To put it simply, an activity that focuses more on the process of doing rather than what the end result will look like.

Craft/Activity/Snack: Process Oriented Campfire painting

Objective: To create a child led piece of art inspired by colors you would see in a campfire

Skills Utilized: Fine motor skills, color recognition, color mixing

Suggested Reading:  Maisy Goes Camping  by Lucy Cousins

Materials:   white paper, orange, red and yellow paint (Crayola washable is our fav!), paintbrush(es), paint palette (or even a paper plate!)

Instructions:

First, we looked at some photos and even a video of one of our campfires from a trip last summer (tiny Maddy-aww!) You can easily find campfire images online to look at and discuss.

 

I thought this was also a great time to bring up fire safety again with Madeline.  We discussed that when roasting marshmallows and using the fire to cook over she needed to be helped by Mama or Daddy.  We discussed how the fire is hot and not to get too close.

Next, we discussed the colors we could see in the campfire. We discovered we could see shades of red, yellow, and orange.  We decided to make this a color mixing activity as well so we picked out red and yellow.  We then created orange by mixing the two.

Next up-let your child paint freely! This is all about the process, remember? Maddy even likes to use her hands as a medium sometimes. Don’t be afraid to let them get messy. Just let them go for it!

There you have it! A child led masterpiece. Can’t you just hear the flames crackling?