Leaf Styro Marker Prints

This is a lovely fall lesson I tried for the first time. The ones that turned out were really nice but I will say it was a super challenging project for my Grade 4-6 class. It had mixed and unpredictable results and I'm not sure I will teach it again as alot of kids got really frustrated and I wasn't able to really help. It's a really good 'process over product' type of art project! haha

I looked at these two websites for steps and inspirations: HERE and HERE

So kids collected leaves outside. Then they did an observational line/contour drawing of it on regular copy paper. They cut it out, put it on a piece of printing styrofoam and traced over the outline and veins using a ball point pen. This makes incised lines onto the styro. They can go over the lines again using a dull pencil to make the grooves deeper. 

Then, they colour the leaf using waterbased markers (Crayola, Mr. Sketch, etc). Then, using a slightly damp sponge to make their printing paper damp. Then immediately press the styro onto the paper. This is where most kids struggled- knowing how damp to make the paper- too damp and the marker bleeds and you don't get a crisp print- too little water and you get a really dry, patchy looking print. It was frustrating for sure and took alot of practice!!  When it does work, it's super exciting and satisfying, haha!

Students filled the paper with as many prints as they could. Let these dry overnight.

The styrofoam plates can just be rinsed in the sink and left to dry and used again the next class. 

The next class, students cut out their leaves, arranged them onto black paper in a pleasing composition and glued them down. 

Some Grade 4 - 6 results:

Stained Glass in Oil Pastel

My older student have a love/hate relationship with oil pastels. I will say the majority hate using them and always ask me after an oil pastel project if they 'ever have to use them again', haha. I love them for their blending capabilities and bright colours but I find my students find them messy and difficult to control, so they get frustrated with them quite easily. 

So for this project the goal for them was to learn how to create a blended gradation or value change using oil pastels. We used stained glass as an inspiration because the glass used usually has a variation of values within it. 

They started off by looking at different types of stained glass online. Then, on coloured construction paper, they drew out their design in pencil. I encouraged them to include borders and not have super large shapes; to really break up the space. Once the drawing was finalized and approved by me, they traced over all the pencil lines using a jumbo/king size Sharpie to mimic the thick lead lines.

Then they coloured in the entire design using oil pastels, making sure to include gradations within each section.

Some Grade 7 - 9 artworks: