WEBELOS

 ARTIST

Sam Houston Area Council

The Artist Activity Badge is designed to help the boys have a better understanding of techniques and color. It will also help the boy learn to express himself in a manner that people appreciate and understand.

SUGGESTED DEN ACTIVITIES:

• Invite an art teacher or artist to Den Meeting.

• Attend an Art Exhibit or visit a museum.

• Make mobiles.

• Explain and demonstrate with paints and color wheel.

• Make a simple sculpture.

• Ask boys to make a profile of a family member.

• Have modeling clay and materials on hand for making models.

• Make drawings on a nature hike.

• Do sand casting or spoon printing.

COLORED CONCOCTIONS

Let the Webelos Scouts practice mixing colors using different flavors of Kool-aid in primary colors (add a drop or two of food coloring as needed). Have them make up names for their different "formulas," design a menu, and serve their concoctions at the pack meeting.

SNACK FOOD SCULPTURE

Sculpture materials: Bread sticks, pretzels, potato chips, corn chips, popcorn, crackers, cheese curls, etc.

Paste:

Mix three 8-oz packages of softened cream cheese with 8-oz sour cream.

Blend in a package of dried onion soup mix.

• Each player should have a paper plate and a plastic knife.

• First lay out a framework for the sculpture.

• Bread sticks, pretzels, crackers and rippled potato chips are great for this.

• You  may want to stand bread sticks as a skeleton and add lighter food to it.

• When you finish your snack-food sculpture, give it a title and display it (briefly).

• Then the snack­ food sculptures can be eaten-artfully nibbled into nothingness.

WHICH COLOR HOLDS HEAT?

Materials needed:

Four juice cans

Poster paint (white, black, green and red)

Hot water (close to boiling)

Four thermometers

Food Coloring

Paint each can a different color, and then fill each can with equal amounts of hot water.

Add food coloring to the hot water, mixing drops of all the colors together to get black.

Put a thermometer in each can, then record the temperature every three minutes until the water cools.

Make a graph showing your results.

Which color held the heat best?

TIN FOIL SCULPTURES

You will need:

Plenty of aluminum foil;                                            clear tape,

wire,                            long straight pins,                         paper,

acrylic paint and brush or permanent markers,

scraps of fabric,                   yarn,                               glue, etc.

1.     Crumble aluminum foil to form shapes of objects or creatures, or shape the foil around a wire frame.

2.     Fasten clumps together with pins, wire, or tape.

3.     Use paint or markers to add color.

4.     Glue on scraps of fabric, paper, year, etc to add details.

ART SHOW

Sponsor a den or pack art show that would encourage all boys to create something in various media for judging and display.

Invite parents to judge and be part of the fun.

 Create FUN awards for the judges to give:

MOST KALEIDOSCOPIC - using all or at least many different colors.

MOST TRANQUIL - anything that looks restful.

MOST AUTOMOVISTIC - relating to cars, hot rods, trucks, etc.

MOST ACHROMATISTIC - meaning free from color, black and white picture.

MOST CAPTIVATING - catches your eye.

MOST SYMBOLIC - representation of a symbol or emblem.

MOST DUPLICITIC - a double, in pairs, using two as part of the design.

MOST NATURALISTIC-anything to do with nature; trees, flowers, animals, etc.

Webelos Scouts could work on the Art Academic Belt Loop and Pin in conjunction with this activity badge.

Along this idea, Circle Ten Council suggests using all the boys projects and having an Art Fair at your next Pack meeting. This will help them to qualify for the ART ACADEMIC Belt Loop. See the Art booklet for further details.

TRIP IDEAS

Circle Ten Council

Visit an Art Festival – Is there a weekend Art Festival coming up in your area where you can take the boys and see what people are making and painting??

Let the boys use their imaginations for the Artist Activity badge, and then visit the museum at the end of the month to see what famous artists have done with the same materials.

Here are some ideas from Circle Ten Council that use displays at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. While planning your activities for this month, visit your local museum of art and see what ideas you get!!

• Cut ten blocks of wood for each boy, plus a larger block of wood for the base. “Three-quarter inch square molding” from a lumberyard is excellent for this purpose. Have the boys make sculptures by gluing blocks together—stacked, angled corner to surface, edge to edge, whatever. Then go to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and see what David Smith, a famous American sculptor, did with ten blocks of stainless steel and a welding torch.

• Let each boy make a large tissue paper collage, using the colors of his choice. The base for the collage can be 4 or 9 sheets of typing paper masked taped together. Then go to the DMFA and see what Henri Matisse, a famous French artist did with this same idea.

• Have boys make mobiles, following instructions in Webelos Scout Book. Then go to DMFA and see what Alexander Calder, originator of the mobile did.

• Have boys make free form sculpture of clay. Then go to DMFA and see Henry Moore’s interpretation of Woman, Jacques Lipchitz’s bather, Constantin Brancusi’s Egg, Barbara Hepworth’s Contrapuntal Forms, and Jean Arp’s Sculpture Classique, to name only a few.

• An “original painting” need not be an uninspired photographic reproduction of reality. At the DMFA, study the original painting by Piet Mondrian, Victor Vasarely, Ben Nicholson, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, among others.

• Supply the boys with white glue, burlap, acrylic paint in several colors and black and white, small wood scraps, wire, and a wooden base board 12” x 12”. Then go see what Louise Nevelson, Bontecou, and other did with similar materials.

Homemade Paints

Santa Clara County Council

Here are some homemade paint recipes that you can use for the Art activity badge.  They are thick concoctions that can add texture to artistic creations.  For added interest, try squeezing them out of a bottle, or from a zip-style sandwich bag with a corner snipped off.

Soap Flake Paint:  Slowly add ½ cup soap flakes to ½ cup water, beating with an eggbeater as you go.  Beat until the mixture is blended evenly.  Food coloring or tempura paint may be added for color.

Faux Oil Paint:  Mix 1 tablespoon powdered tempura paint and 1 tablespoon dishwashing liquid.  Blend evenly.  It feels like real oil paint.

Sparkle Paint:  Blend together ¼ cup flour, ¼ cup salt, ¼ cup water, and 2 tablespoons tempura paint.  When dry, the salt makes the picture sparkle.

MAKE A SILHOUETTE

Circle Ten Council

Silhouettes of each den member make the meeting place take on new meaning. To make silhouettes, place Webelos on chair or stool in front of wall. Place a lamp or light, with light directed toward Webelos if possible, on the opposite side of the Cub from the wall. Hang paper, cardboard, or thin plywood on the wall, and trace the Cub’s shadow. Cut it out, paint it black and mount (if desired) and hang. Changing the distance of the light from the subject can regulate the size of the shadow.

GAMES

Circle Ten Council

SQUIGGLE DRAWINGS

Give each den member a sheet of paper and have them make a wavy or zigzag line on the paper. Then have them exchange paper with another boy, who must turn the squiggle into a picture.

DRAWING CHARADES

Group is divided into two teams. Each has a large sheet of paper. Teams line up in relay fashion. On signal, the first boy in each line runs to a leader who gives him an object to draw. The boys go to the paper and draw his object. When the team recognizes what he has drawn, they tell the leader. If the answer is correct they get a point. The game continues until all members of each team has and a chance to draw.  (Watch “Win, Lose or Draw on GSN to see this in action CD)

TAG TEAM ART

Line den members up in relay fashion. Have a large piece of paper for each team taped on the wall or hung on an easel. Have the first boy begin drawing an object or design on the paper, without talking to anyone about what he is to draw. Allow him 30 seconds, then signal for the next boy. This boy adds to the original picture or design. Each boy has thirty seconds to draw. When each boy has had a turn or two (depending on how the picture is taking shape), signal; a stop. The den members should not confer about the drawing. When the signal is given to stop and all have “admired” their handiwork, have the first boy relate what the original object was to be and see what the finished project exactly looks like.

The Color Wheel

Circle Ten Council

Primary colors go in every other pie section. 

They are: __________,  __________,  __________.

Secondary Colors are created by mixing two Primary colors. 

Mix two primary colors together and

find that they are: __________,  __________,  __________.

Fill in the remaining pie sections with the appropriate secondary colors.

What are three neutral colors? ___________, ___________, __________

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are those that are opposite each other on the color wheel.

Write down three pairs of complimentary colors.

__________ and __________

__________ and __________

__________ and __________

Can two primary colors be complementary to each other? ______

Can two secondary colors be complementary to each other?  ______