Making art in your community is a great way to lift people’s spirits — seeing art in unexpected places can make a lot of people smile!
This project will allow you to create an art installation right in your own front yard for your neighbours to enjoy. Watch the video or read below for a step-by-step guide on how to create your own community art.
Step One: Gather Materials
You’ll need to gather the following materials before you start creating your art installation.
- Coloured paper (could be construction paper, wrapping paper, or white paper that you’ve added some colour to)
- Permanent markers
- Coloured markers, pencil crayons, highlighters, and/or paint
- Scissors
- Tape (ideally packing tape, but scotch tape works too!)
- Yarn, scrap fabric, or wire
- A hole punch or a pen
Step Two: Add Colour
Using your markers, pencil crayons, highlighters, or paint, add some scribbles of colour to your paper. You can use as many pieces of paper as you want, depending on how big you want your installation to be.
Feel free to use a variety of different tools to colour your paper as you layer in different colours and patterns. It doesn’t matter what your scribbles look like — it’s all about having fun!
Step Three: Tape and Cut
Cover the entire front side of your piece of paper with tape. This will keep it waterproof when it’s outside. Flip your paper over and fold in the extra bits of tape that are peeking over the edges.
Cut out some heart shapes from your paper. You can do this freehand or you can sketch the shapes on your paper before you start to cut.
Step Four: Add A Message
Flip each heart over and use a marker to add a message to the back of your heart. You’ll want to keep your message short and write it in big, bold letters so that it will be easy to see from far away.
Some examples of inspiring messages you can write on your hearts are hope, love, laughter, and growth.
Step Five: Cover and Trim
Cover the back side of your hearts with tape. Use your scissors to trim the leftover tape that’s sticking over the edges of each heart. Punch a hole near the top of your hearts using a hole punch or a pen.
Step Six: Hang It Up
Thread some yarn, scrap fabric, or wire through the hole in your paper. Go out into your yard and find a spot to hang your hearts. You could put them on a tree or bush, on a fence, or even in your window!
Once you’ve chosen a spot for your hearts, tie the ends of your yarn, scrap fabric, or wire together to hang them.
Step Seven: Yarn Storming
You can add some extra colour to your art installation by doing some yarn storming! Wrap a bunch of yarn or fabric around tree branches or fence posts until you have a big block of colour and tie the ends together. You can repeat this as many times as you like.
You could also add some braided tassels of yarn hanging from your branches (it’s just like braiding hair!) or create some macrame knots. If you want to continue creating art in your community, adding hearts, drawings, or messages of support in your windows is another great way to make people smile.
No matter what you choose to do, community art is a great way to bring people together and spread a little hope.
Your community art installation is now complete. Don’t forget to take a picture and share it on social media with #DAREtogether and tag DAREarts so we can see what you’ve created!
Looking for more creative activities? Visit our Learn From Home Centre.