Pastel Scratchboards

Here is a project grade 2 did last week.

It comes from this book.

Take a piece of heavy paper like manila tag or cardstock.......... Using pastels color little bits at a time in bright colors.       

Color in the entire page.

Take some black acrylic paint and paint over entire page.

Using a wooden skewer or toothpick scratch in your design.

Here are the finished results from Grade 2.  We were following the book and scratching in a grid design but you can easily do a full picture like the one posted at the beginning.  Thicker lines tend to look better.

Great work Grade 2.  Why don't you give it a try?

Woven Flowers and Butterflies

Sorry I haven't posted a lot lately...been trying to keep up with the kids!

This is a project I recently completed with Grade 1. 

It is a combination of a circle weaving project I first saw on "oodles of Art Projects" here.......

and a butterfly project from "The Artful Parent".

This is my version so let's get started.

We used small recycled paper plates which were cut with 9 notches. Just cut from the rim to where the flat plate begins.  You need an ODD number in order to weave.

Pierce a hole in the center with a knitting needle.

Cut 9 lengthes of yarn....mine were about 6 inches and put one end thru the hole..other thru the notch and tie the 2 ends into a knot on the other side.
Do this for all 9 notches.

Take some yarn in the color you want to weave with. Tie on at the back and then feed thru the hole in the center.

For the kids I used a large plastic needle to help with their weaving.  I tied the other end of the yarn to the needle to stop it from slipping out.

Start weaving around the center going under one of the pieces of yarn tied in the notch and then over the next one.  When it's time to change yarn just tie right onto the end of the last one.

One thing you have to be careful with is to get the kids to keep the weaving quite loose otherwise it starts to pop up in the center instead of fanning out to the edges of the plate.

Here is an example of the yarn bunching up in the center.

Each child was asked to use 3 colors.

When the kids were finished weaving (this took a while) tie the last end of the yarn off by pulling it to the back thru a notch and then knotting it onto one of the other yarn pieces.



The kids then painted the rest of the plate.  We used liquid tempera paint.  Tempera disks did not work so well as there was a coating on the plate that resisted the paint a bit.  Set aside to dry.

I traced a large circle for each child, about 4 inches larger in diameter than the paper plate.

They painted these in various colors and patterns using disk tempera.

Set aside to dry.

Glue the woven plate to the center of the painted circle for your flower.  You could cut petals into the painted circle if you want.

For the butterfly I traced a butterfly shape to heavy paper.

The kids were asked to draw some designs onto the butterfly with white pastel.  Lines, circles, stripes.....



They then painted on top of these designs with disk tempera.

The kids loved this part as their designs "magically" appeared.

After they painted their butterfly we put them into the rack to dry and I gave each of them a coffee filter to paint.

I decided to add the coffee filter to the design to help hold the clothespin in place at the end.

Set aside to dry.

While everything was drying I painted some old fashioned clothespins with black acrylic paint.

I had the kids cut out the butterfly....they picked out a pipe cleaner for the antennae....we put tacky glue on the back in the center and in the front....slide the clothespin in place and then scrunch in the coffee filter.

Let the glue dry and you're done.

Beautiful flowers and butterflies.

Painted Kites

Here are some kites that Grade 5 completed with Mrs. Ryan. 

They looked so great in the display case I asked if I could post them on the blog.

Now for this set of kites they used these construction bags as the fabirc for the kites.  It is similar to tarp material and did fray on the edges. 

Mrs. Ryan wanted to use house wrap like tyvec but the roll at the hardware store was too big.  If you can locate a small amount this would be a great option otherwise you might want to sew your edges or fold over and glue down to prevent the fray.

Cut a basic kite shape.  Take 2 sticks, a good cheap option is to use the natural bamboo garden stakes.  Here in Calgary I can get a pack of 24 for a $1.99.

Tape your sticks into place using hockey tape.  You can add a tail with some plastic ribbon which you can also get at the hardware store.

Tie your string on at the joint between the 2 sticks...make sure to tie them together here as well.

Turn over and paint with  acrylic paint.

Great job Grade 5!

I also thought I would include these watercolor pencil  paintings from Grade 4.

Wonderful work Grade 4!

Big Blue Marble

I'm back!

When I was a kid there was a show on PBS called "Big Blue Marble" and it was my first introduction into thinking globally and ecologically.

In honor of Earth Day I'm taking that big blue marble theme as a basis for some projects.

The first project is a watercolor painting project.

You need the following......

watercolor paper
paint (tempera or watercolor)
brushes
round objects for tracing
paper for mounting
glue
reference photos
pencil

Find an assortment of round objects around the house.  You want large, medium, and small sized marbles.

Using a pencil trace a bunch onto your watercolor paper.

In order to make your marble look 3 dimensional you need to add a highlight...because it is sphereical your highlight will be a concave rectangular shape.

Your highlight will be in the same place for all marbles.

Pencil in some guidelines for your "earth" marble as well.

Now you can start painting.  Don't worry about staying in the lines as you will be cutting these marbles out.  Don't be afraid to add some drops of water onto your painting to create some "blooms".

This will make yor marbles look more like glass.  Click on photo to see larger.

Paint in your Earth.  Using a kleenex you can lift out some clouds.  When it is dry you can also use a wet brush to scrub where you want a misty cloud and then blot with a kleenex.

Now when painting a sphereical shape with watercolor it helps to go back in after and lift a little paint from the center just below the highlight.  To lift use a wet brush (clear water) and scrub a little.

You also want your edges (where you penciled your circle) to be a bit darker as they are receding.  Add some darker shading.

Keep painting in all your marbles...use a reference photo to help. (search google images for marbles)

Cut out your marbles and experiment with placement before gluing.  Make sure the highlight remains in the same place for all marbles when positioning.

You can also add some pastel to create a shadow on the surface where your marbles are placed or to show the wall/floor.



That's it.  Give it atry and create your own "Big Blue Marble".