Recycled Weaving

You may remember that a week or so ago I was experimenting with "faux weaving" using  cut up cereal boxes (here). Well, that got me to thinking how fun it would be to use this as a jumping off place for introducing real weaving. It is hard for little fingers to cut cardboard, so for Part 2 of my project I switched to cut up strips of magazine pages. As with my previous lesson, I began by gluing strips onto a square piece of board (about 4" X 4"), first horizontally, and then vertical strips on top. Notice that I left space between these strips to make the real weaving easier.

Then, starting on one side of this assemblage, I wove a paper strip under and over the already glued strips. The weaving is easier for little ones if they hang the loose ends over the end of the table. I wove two strips on each of the 4 sides.

To keep the strips from moving around, put a little dot of glue under the strips at each end. This is a good way to reinforce the "one dot is a lot" concept of using glue!!

And, voila!! It looks like a real weaving, but actually only the last two strips on each side were woven. I then cut the strips various lengths on each end to add interest, and let the glue dry.

This could be finished at this stage, but I think it is fun to play around with different backgrounds, too. For this first option, I used a plain piece of medium value illustration board:

 Next, I tried a diagonal placement on a board treated with glue, paper and crayon (more on this in a later post):

 And finally, I tried the weaving on a board I had painted earlier for another project:

I like having children make these kinds of choices with their art to help train their "eye" for seeing contrast and composition alternatives.

Looks Like Weaving, But . . .

You know how you sometimes just collect a bunch of something that you KNOW can be recycled into art?? Well, here are a few of MANY boxes that I have accrued:

At first I was going to use them to create weavings, so I cut them into skinny strips:

That reminded me how hard it was to cut cardboard when I was a little kid. My hand would hurt and I would always run to my mother to help out (fortunately she did!). So, if I do this with kids I think I'll pre-cut the strips on the paper cutter.

Then, instead of weaving, I decided to glue horizontal strips onto a 6" X 6" piece of illustration board . . .

. . . and then glue vertical strips on top of them.

This would be MUCH easier than weaving for younger kids, but the effect is quite similar. I went a step further and cut the ends varying lengths -- I think it looks better.

Of course, I never really got to weave, which was my original objective, so I decided to add on to these using weaving. But I am not quite finished, so I'll save that story for another day. Have a good week.