Halloween is our favourite time of year!
Maybe it’s our time spent living abroad with a more American influence, but we literally cannot wait for October to come and the pumpkins, spiderwebs and witches hats to take over our homes!
Here are some fun ideas of how you can get creative this Halloween!
Glitter spider’s web
With some liquid glue, ‘draw’ out a simple spider’s web on a black piece of paper – in its simplest form this can be circles inside circles with lines coming out from the centre.
Before the glue dries, sprinkle on copious amounts of glitter. When you have covered all your glue lines, shake off any excess glitter and leave to dry.
Your final piece will be a beautiful shiny sparkly spider’s web to hang up during Halloween!
‘Day of the Dead’ skull
Draw a simple shape of a skull and start by adding eyes – ‘Day of the Dead’ is all about intricate and detailed decorations. So you could turn your eyes into flowers, shape your nose like a heart, and make your teeth all bejewelled! Keep on adding decorations all over the skull – extra circles, flowers, swirls, stars…!
Fill in with crayons and water paints, using bright vivid colours. Feel free to add an extra sprinkling of sparkle to your final piece!
Here’s an example, click on the image below to download our Frida-inspired Day of the Dead skull template
Haunted House
On a piece of black paper draw a haunted house – with lots of turrets and windows and pointed roofs!
Cut out your house and cut your windows so that they can open to one side.
Stick this black ‘shadow’ house onto a piece of white paper.
Colour the inside of your windows in yellow, and then add on lots of spooky decorations – a big yellow moon, bats flying in the sky, spiders and spiders’ webs hanging from the doors and windows, and (of course) some pumpkins on the steps…!
Scary Screaming! (Inspired by Edvard Munch)
Edvard Munch was born in Norway. A sickly child, he often used to spend the winter months at home and started to draw to keep himself occupied. In 1881 he studied at the Royal School of Art and Design in Christiania, and by the late 1880s he was beginning to define his style. His paintings from this period are full of emotion and personal symbolism; they feature simplified forms and bold outlines. Munch moved to Paris in 1889 and spent many hours looking at paintings in the city’s galleries and museums. He was particularly impressed by the ways in which Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin expressed emotion through colour. “The Scream” is the best-known of Munch’s paintings. There are actually four versions of the work (two in pastel, and two in paint). One of the pastel versions sold for more than $100 million in 2012.
On a piece of water-colour paper (leaving lots of space at the top) draw a rectangular oval-shaped face but with NO hair (like an open cup at the top!). Add a neck and shoulders.
Draw in semi-circular eyes, scared eyebrows, a nose, ears and a BIG oval open mouth! Inside the top of your mouth add teeth, and at the bottom a tongue.
If you want, follow your pencil contour lines in black – either with a black crayon or a black marker if you have one at home.
Use oil pastels, crayons or pencils to colour in the face and neck – use vivid unexpected colours and blend and mix them.
And now for the fun part! Experiment by using a straw and paint to blow out from the top of the head to create crazy hair! Drop big watery blobs of paint at the hairline, and then with a straw blow different coloured paints in all directions!
Leave to dry on a flat surface so that the crazy hair does not drip all over the place… Give it to someone whom you want to scare!
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