Puffy Paint Ghosts!

This is a student favourite lesson- homemade puffy paint! My Grade 11 students asked to do it again (I did it with them back in Grade 2!). So I had them teach it to a Grade 5 class during Halloween activities. They did a great job.

Mix half shaving cream with the same amount of white glue. Mix well. You can tint it different colours using liquid watercolours or food coloring. The kids love this!  It actually does dry puffy!

 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here's some pics of my decorated door: I cut out a haunted house from black paper, and cut out lots of windows. The I took a bunch of photos of my students making scary faces and glued them behind. My Kindergarten students made the tissue paper collaged pumpkins on the bottom of the 'hill'.

Unfortunately I didn't get any finished photos of this Grade 5 pumpkin project below, but the photos can give you an idea. You need bleeding crepe or tissue paper for this project. We used crepe paper. Draw a simple pumpkin and /or jack 'o' lantern on heavy-ish white paper and colour in the face with a black oil pastel or permanent black marker. Then cut out lots of squares of your crepe paper. Wet a small section of paper with water and a paintbrush and lay a square of crepe paper down. The ink from it will seep onto the white paper. Leave the crepe paper on for about 5 minutes or so and peel it off. 

Do the background a contrasting colour or combination of colours. 

WARNING: this method seriously stains fingers, at least the crepe paper we used did. So make sure they wear rubber gloves if this is going to be a problem.  

You might notice in these photos that about half of my students like to work standing up, the other half prefer sitting. I always find this so interesting.

notice the blue stained fingers...

One Point Perspective Pumpkin Patch Landscape

I wanted a cool one-point perspective lesson that didn't involve the typical 'cityscape'. So Grade 6's did a farm landscape instead.  I did a brief lesson on the basics of one-point perspective.  The kids had to include a scarecrow up-close, anywhere in the foreground, and a barn, farmhouse, etc. in the far background.  Pumpkins needed to be scattered in the field in the middle ground and in varying sizes, depending on their location.  We wanted these pictures to give a real sense of 'near' and 'far'. After outlining everything in Sharpie, students outlined each 'section' in waterbased marker, then simply used  a brush to add water- this dissolved the marker and gave a subtle watercolour effect.  Chalk pastel was used for the sky.

A finished sketch done in the sketchbook to work out ideas first. Love the addition of the fence.

Then drawn on the large paper and everything is outlined in permanent marker.

Now time to colour....we used the 'bleeding marker' technique. Using waterbased markers, draw a thick outline within each shape. Then use a wet paintbrush and 'paint' it with water and it will dissolve the marker.  It creates a lovely watercolour-type wash.

Here are the Grade 6 results: Ta da!

This super creepy scarecrow, according to the footprints, has just set fire to the farmhouse!

Pyro scarecrow!

This one has two sides: evil scarecrow and happy scarecrow- so creative!!

Glue Line Watercolour Pumpkins

Grade 6 students created these glue line watercolour paintings. These were inspired by a 2005 lesson from Arts & Activities magazine called "Glue, Hue and Contour, Too" by Art teacher Paula Guhin. Her original lesson involved drawing plants from observation- I've simply changed it to pumpkins for Fall.

See my other glue line pumpkin project here. It is done on black paper with chalk pastels.

In this lesson, students needed to demonstrate an understanding of contour lines, wet-on-wet techniques of watercolor painting and warm and cool colours. 

They observed, from life, mini pumpkins which I bought at the grocery store. I buy mini pumpkins because, well, they're both super cute and, more importantly, alot less heavy to transport

as opposed to a bunch of large pumpkins!

First, they practiced drawing them in their sketchbooks, and then 'drew' them on heavy white paper (large watercolour or heavy white paper is best- don't use construction paper- it won't work) with white glue straight from the bottle. Add vines, grass, etc. We didn't draw them first with a pencil- otherwise the pencil lines have a tendency to show through the glue when it's dry. So that's why students really practised drawing beforehand in their sketchbooks- so they would be confident enough to draw free-hand with the glue without following a pencil line.

Note: it's quite difficult to draw small details with the glue- it just bleeds together into a blob- so keeps your shapes fairly big and simple. Using large paper (at least 9 x 12" or larger) helps.

I really emphasized the use of curved lines for the lines separating the segments. 

Some students had a tendency to draw these straight, so watch for this.

After students have drawn it with glue, they might notice some of their glue lines have 'beaded' up and separated. Simply pass over the lines again to re-connect them all. 

Actually, the thicker the lines, the easier they will be to see the next day.

Let dry on a flat surface (we use the floor) overnight and the next day

the glue lines will have flattened out quite a bit.





Once it's dry, outline all the glue lines with a fine point permanent marker. The glue lines can be tricky to see, so it's a matter of tilting the paper towards the light or feeling for the lines with your fingers. Students quickly get the hang of it. Remind the kids to work slowly as the marker has a tendency to 'skip' over the glue lines if you trace too fast.

Finally, paint with watercolours. I demonstrated to students how to achieve a 3-D looking pumpkin using lighter shades in the middle of the pumpkins. Encourage colour mixing and having the colours bleed together with water.

Ta da!