Art with Letters and Words: Painting over Adhesive Letters

Age Level:  Kindergarten/First Grade

Learning Objectives: 

• Learn how artists can use letters and numbers in art
• Use overlap
• Identify and use shapes
• Develop fine motor skills by tracing and painting
  

Materials

1. Board Mate Repositional Paper Letters/Numbers
2. Board Mate Jumbo Reuseable Stencils
3. Other assorted stencils of your choice
4. Painter’s Squeeze ‘n Brush paints (or other tempera paint of your choice)
5. Watercolor paints, brush, water or brush markers
6. White cardstock or thick paper

Process: 
1.  View and discuss artworks that have words in them. Some examples are:

• Robert Indiana
• Stuart Davis
• Jasper Johns

What words do you see in these pictures?  What numbers or letters do you see?  What do you think these artworks mean? What are some reasons an artist might use letters or numbers in their art?  Have you ever created art with letters or numbers?

2.  Peel off repositional letters and stick to your white paper.  You can spell words or just randomly place letters on the page.  The adhesive letters have a strip of adhesive at the top of the letter (like a post-it note) so if you wanted to use these as a collage layer, you would need to glue them down.

3.  Squeeze paint from the Painter’s Squeeze ‘n Brush paints and brush on top of the letters.  Use one hand to hold down the letters while painting. 

Continue painting until all letters are covered.

4.  After you are finished painting, carefully peel all of the letters off.  The letters should remain white.

5.  Draw additional shapes and symbols with stencils.  Overlap shapes to add interest.

6.  Paint the shapes with watercolor paints or markers.

Here are some additional examples using this technique.