Tissue Turtles and Resist Rabbits

 Today kinder, 1st, and 2nd grade started their tissue paper turtles.

We looked at "Clover" and examined all of the shapes on her back and the texture on her arms

 The kids loved watching her slowly walk across their tables as they worked. I put her on each table for a few minutes while I monitored her.

The kids used a large black Staonal crayon to decorate their shells with lots of shapes

to do the tissue paper printing 

1. paint small area with water

2. place tissue on the water and then paint a little water on top of the tissue to make sure the whole square is completely saturated or I tell the kids "see through" on their turtle shell

 3.repeat until the whole shell is covered and no white paper is showing

4. when the tissue paper is dry, you can remove to reveal your beautiful print!

We used green paper to draw the head, and legs. They drew the eyes on white paper and glued the eyes on the turtles

Here are a few finished ones from second grade

I have been playing around with ideas for an Easter project

I thought of making bunnies using a stencil. Have you ever wondered what bunnies have to do with Easter? Bunnies are a symbol of Spring, but also a symbol of new life!

1.get a lightweight plastic binder like the one below

2. draw a bunny on it with a sharpie 

 3. I used an exacto knife to cut out the bunny (adult use only!!)

 4. I used Mod Podge to create the resist by blotting over it with a sponge brush. Tomorrow I am going to try this again using a spray paint clear gloss. I will post results...

5. When the Mod Podge dries, I used liquid watercolors to paint a design over the whole paper. I blotted the white part with a tissue as I painted to keep it nice and white. The lines were not as sharp as I had hoped, so I finished it off by tracing it with a sharpie. I am also considering letting the kids use silver spray paint to paint the stencil on black paper and use silver sharpies to make some zentangle eggs in the background...I will also post the results of those soon!!

A few Finshed Roses

Composition and Design Drawing

This is an easy project you can do in one day.
It is awesome because it covers many principals and elements of art and design.

1st it teaches composition, the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work. It can also be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of design.

The term composition means 'putting together,' and can apply to any work of art, from music, to writing, to photography, that is arranged or put together using conscious thought. In the visual arts, composition is often used interchangeably with various terms such as design, form, visual ordering, orformal structure, depending on the context.

It also teaches about OVERLAPPING shapes, negative space, and the illusion of movement.

Below are the steps I used to teach it.

1.select 3 different color markers

2. Draw 6 shapes using only one color, and decorate the shapes. They need to be large and some can run off the edge of the paper. They need to be very simple shapes. Geometric or organic. They can turn them into something, make concentric lines inside, or fill them in completely.

3. Draw a "ribbon" beginning at the top of the paper and winding down to the bottom going "under" every shape, and touching the sides of the paper as it meanders down the page

4. use the third color to outline the nagative space creating NEW organic shapes. Do not touch the other shapes or the ribbon but stay very close. 

5. decorate the inside of the new shapes with a congruent pattern using the same color (stripes, polka dots, wiggly lines, stars, etc)

6. decorate the inside of the ribbon with only the ribbon color

I did this with kinder and 1st today and it was amazing to see them thinking about and planning their composition. Besides a few that didn't finish, we had great success. I think this would be good for any age level. I plan to do it on a larger scale with the older groups.

Here are some kinder, first, and a few second grade works