Art Inspired by Eric Carle

Over the years, we have all enjoyed Eric Carle's books. Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar are among our favorites and I'm sure that I could recite them by heart.

So, when I saw this neat art project posted on Chocolate on my Cranium, I knew that we had to give it a try. I can't seem to find her exact post, because it was a few months back, but they made some beautiful artwork.

First we took some plain, white paper. I used cardstock, because I had some extra and thought it might be easier to work with. You could probably use plain paper also.

We used various different paints and just painted the blank sheets, trying to make different patterns and textures. The poster paints looked best - especially the "glitter" ones. They gave it a really neat shine. We also used some acrylics, because we had them in various colors. They left a more "dull" look to the pages, but still worked.

This is one of the times that I am eternally thankful that I have an arts & crafts table. The thought of doing this at the dining room table scares me. Especially since I let Nick participate!


I let them dry overnight. Some of the papers were pretty wet, since we were making interesting textures in it. They curled up as they dried:


I stacked them all up and put them under the monstrous Webster's Dictionary to flatten out a bit.

Then we started cutting pieces out to make our pictures. We used glue sticks and put them onto cardstock as a background. I would definitely do this project again!!

Ellie made a caterpillar:

And a butterfly:

Kate did a flower:

Lexie made a cute little ladybug:
I had to jump in and make some flowers too. I couldn't help myself!!

Doesn't this look like fun?????? Give it a try!!