Joyce Mundy, an art teacher at Holy Sepulcher Catholic School, provides step-by-step instructions for a holiday art project. Mundy completed the project this year with grades five through eight, but said it would make a great “holiday paint party” for adults of all ages, she said. “You can obviously frame it, use it as a Christmas decoration,” she said. “You can even snap a photo of it and turn it into a Christmas card.” Austin Uram/Butler Eagle

MIDDLESEX TWP — While the weather outside may be frightful, holiday arts and crafts make for a delightful way to spend any winter evening.

Joyce Mundy, art teacher at Holy Sepulcher Catholic School, has provided a step-by-step holiday art project suitable for kids from 1 to 92.

“This is very simple; we just trace patterns,” she said. “This is about overlapping, so we have things ‘in front,’ ‘in the middle’ and ‘behind’ — which is something we’d study in art.”

Pictured are finished art projects from grades five through eight at Holy Sepulcher Catholic School. Art teacher Joyce Mundy said the project can be as simple or complicated as the artist likes. “You can take this and turn it into your own particular drawing,” she said. “It’s very simple circles, but you can make it your own.” Austin Uram/Butler Eagle

While Mundy completed the project with grades five through eight this year, she said it would make a great “holiday paint party” for adults of all ages.

And it doesn’t require any professional materials.

“This is what’s great about this project; it’s very basic,” Mundy said. “It’s things you would have at home.”

For the drawing paper, Joyce Mundy recommended a heavyweight cardstock, but she said it could be completed with office paper. The only other tools required are drawing utensils such as a pencil, pens and an eraser; coloring materials, such as colored pencils, markers or paints; and scissors. Austin Uram/Butler Eagle

She recommended a heavyweight paper for the drawing and to use for cutting out shapes.

The only other tools required are drawing utensils, coloring materials and scissors.

“You can use crayon, pencil, permanent marker, markers, colored pencils, water paints or other paints that you have at home,” she said.

Besides framing the finished work, Mundy said it also makes great seasonal cards to scan and send to family and friends.

“There are also so many items these days you can purchase online — it could be put on coffee cups, all kinds of items,” she said. “It’s a perfect Christmas gift.”

And the basic nature of the project allows artists to make it as simple or complicated as they’d like, according to Mundy.

Working in crayons and watercolors, Mundy added highlights and shading to her own drawing, but she said some students added designs, illustrations and colored backgrounds to their own.

“You can take this and turn it into your own particular drawing,” she said. “It’s very simple circles, but you can make it your own.”

Step 1: Cut out three circles of varying sizes from a piece of paper to use as templates. “You can copy circles from anything,” Mundy said. “You can use a compass, you can use cups — anything that is a different-sized circle.” Then, use the templates to trace overlapping circles on a piece of paper. “Where they overlap, you may have to erase lines and decide what is ‘in front’ and what is ‘behind,’” Mundy said. “This is a challenge for children, to get rid of the lines and make it look like it has depth.”

Step 2: A small rectangle and circle can then be added to each circle to create Christmas ornaments. Other details like shading, highlights and designs can also be sketched in at this stage.

Step 3: “Once you’re done drawing, you simply outline,” Mundy said. “You can outline with anything: black pencil, black crayon, permanent marker and if you’re going to paint over it, oil pastels are great.” Using wax-based materials for the outline — such as crayons or oil pastels — would help keep paints like watercolors within the lines, according to Mundy.

Step 4: The final step is adding color. “Choose your colors, decide what you’d like to do,” Mundy said. “You can put highlights, as I did, or you can just have them very sketchy. Do you want to paint the background black? Whatever you would like to do, it works.”