Papier Mache Leaf Displays - 3 Variations

Remember the papier mache leaves we made the last 2 sessions??
The 3 below were painted using the paintings of Kim MacConnel as inspiration. You can see his work here. I love his abstracts for their colors and patterns!! You can find Parts 1 and 2 of this lesson here and here.

Well, here is Part 3, with 3 ways to display the leaves.

Our first variation is to create sculpture with the leaves. Glue All and clothespins to hold the leaves will work, but a parent or teacher manning hot glue guns at a station for kids to rotate through is faster if you have the man-power. I suppose older kids could be trusted with this step, but it always makes me nervous to put hot glue guns in the hands of children in a classroom.

These are mounted on black illustration board.

Combining the leaves gives students an opportunity to experiment with  "form"

Option #2 is mounting the leaves flat on illustration board (or cardstock) with at least one edge outside the boundary. This provides an opportunity to discuss positive and negative space.

Display Option #3 is to make a mobile. These were hard to photograph showing the dimension, but I think you can get the idea. You can see the hole punched in the leaf with an awl (a metal skewers, too). The leaves are hung with fine monofilament fishing line so it looks like they are falling. One of our science units is "Balance and Motion" and these mobiles give students practice in getting their leaves to balance.

Here are the "MacConnel" leaves hanging from a twig. We have lots of trees with fallen twigs around school, so it is easy to have students go out and find a suitable ones.

This Mondrian inspired mobile is hanging from a small portion cup with 4 holes punched at "12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock. Again, fishing line is tied on the line and in the punched holes in the cup. You can see the close up below.

This last example is a combinaton of sponge painted leaves and leaves painted with colors to match famous artists' works.

Most of these leaves were painted with acrylic so they have some shine. If you use a more matte finish, you might spray the leaves with a shiny glaze before the final assembly.

My original thought was to do class mobiles -- large affairs with kids hanging their all their leaves from one large branch -- but that's not going to happen this hear.
Happy papier macheing!!!

Shape & Form Display

Every February our school has what is called a "Kindergarten Round-Up" where parents of future kindergarteners are invited to a presentation by the principal and then a tour of the school. They start in the Auditorium, so today a parent volunteer and I put up all of the multi-media collages that 5th graders finished 2 weeks ago. I love looking at these works displayed together. Even though I have posted about these before, I thought I'd share a few more:

The student artist of the upper right piece used black crayon for the designs on his small cut shapes, but instead of using watercolor for the background extensions, used pencil. I love the difference in intensity!

You can see how students started with crayon patterns on cut-out shapes. They glued the shapes to their board so that they had form. Finally they extended the crayon pattern onto the flat background using watercolors and VERY careful brush strokes.

If you missed the original post, the lesson is here.

Chihuly Inspired

Early this school year, fueled with ideas from many blogs on Dale Chiluly's glass art, I started shopping for #6 plastic (found it at our local Smart & Final)

and saving my large cranberry juice bottles to use as a base. A few of the blogs I remember particularly are MaryMaking (http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2010/02/dale-chihuly-inspired-sculpture.html), Art With Mr. E, (http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/) and   http://mnpschihulyartlessons.blogspot.com/ .  There was one other where the teacher used 9 oz. clear cups that was interesting, too, but I can't find it now.

Anyway, the other day I went to my box of recycled stuff where I had dumped my large plastic bottles and every last one of them was GONE!!  Perhaps someone thought he or she was being helpful by dumping them for me -- I don't know -- but I knew I couldn't drink enough juice in the time left before we started the lesson, so I went to the 4th grades and put out the call to the kids, hoping I wouldn't get 100 large bottles!!! (I only needed 4 or 5.)

A few years ago, when visiting Seattle, I had the opportunity to see a lot of Chihuly's work (including his Bridge of Glass) and visit the Museum of Glass in Tacoma where they have a "hot shop" with guest artists making glass art.  It was fascinating!!  I showed my class some video clips from Dale Chihuly's website (see my gadget of Sites I Like for the link).  We talked about line designs and how placing complementary colors next to each other creates contrast, and then they were off,  armed with permanent markers and the clear plastic.

When the kids were finished I popped their work into a small convection oven we have at school and watched the magic happen.

I did this outside in the hallway today. It was a breezy day -- perfect,  because I couldn't find any definitive info on the web guaranteeing me that the fumes wouldn't give me some dreaded disease.  I wasn't taking any chances.

After the shapes "baked and curled" I used a glue gun to attach them to the large bottle bases and "Lo and behold..."

Each class got one of their "teamwork" creations and the Art Room gets one, too.  Before I started hot gluing I tied a heavy piece of fish line around the neck of the bottle so we could hang the installation from the ceiling.  I know a lot of folks have posted Dale Chihuly inspired photos lately, but these turned out so whimsical that I couldn't resist the temptation to share!!

CA Content Standard - 2.8 Use complementary colors in an original composition to show contrast and emphasis.