We did several art projects during our study of space last week. We painted cool sun pictures, made the Earth from a coffee filter, and the moon out of playdoh.
I think the one project my son enjoyed the most was the simplest: drawing a space scene on black construction paper with oil pastels.
Oil pastels are the best thing to use when you need color to really pop on dark paper and you can’t or don’t want to use paint. They’re very inexpensive (about $3.00 a box at Hobby Lobby) and you can use them the same way you use crayons.
My son can tend to rush through coloring, but simply using a different medium made him a lot more engaged. He even ended up drawing two on his own.
Older kids can use them to add shading to their drawings to make them look more dimensional. You can take your finger, q-tip, or small tissue and rub over the oil pastel to smear it. My eight year old daughter followed this tutorial on my favorite art blog to create this space picture using oil pastels:
Art projects don’t always have to be complex. Sometimes a new medium can breathe new life and fun into a relatively simple project!