Halloween Cat Art Project

Here is another Halloween art project.   It's 3D with the cat sitting out from the pumpkin background.

Very easy to make and makes a nice display for those Halloween themed bulletin boards or at home.  Make a small one with the ground equal in size to the pumpkin and you have a pop up card.










MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- black cardstock
- wc paper (14x12 or so)
- pencil
- tempera disk paints
- glue
- scissors
- white pencil crayon
- templates, Cat BODY and Cat HEAD
- colored paper (optional)



PROCEDURE:

On your wc paper or heavy sketch paper fold up the bottom 2 inches.

Flatten out again and sketch out a pumpkin shape using the fold line as the bottom of the pumpkin.  You want the pumpkin to be as big as you can make it on that paper.

In the bottom 2 inches draw a few leaves keeping most of the bottom paper.

Using your tempera disk paint, liquid tempera or wc paint add color to your sketch.

Using the templates trace out the cat body and head onto black paper.  Use a white pencil crayon so you can see it.

Cut out.

Now you could use colored paper to make your eyes, nose, and inner ears or you can paint them on scrap wc paper.

Cut out and glue into place on your cat head.  Using that white pencil crayon again draw in the whiskers and mouth.

Following guidelines on the template fold body and head.

Turn cat head to the back and apply some glue on the lower part of the tab after the last fold line.

Stick it onto the back of your cat body so that the fold lines match up.

When your pumpkin background is dry cut it out.


Fold up that bottom 2 inches on the fold line you've already made.

Apply glue to the back of the cat and the bottom inch that is folded up.

Do not put any glue on the tail above the fold line or on the head.

Stick onto background matching the fold lines of the bottom 2 inches of the background and the bottom of the cat.

That's it!

Now that wasn't so hard was it.  If you find your cat sagging a bit from the background you can add an extra strip of posterboard along the bottom fold line in the back for extra support.











See you soon,

Art Project in Process: Crowned Cranes & Dandelions

Sometimes you get an idea in your head that won't stop knocking.......


Some of you know that I love birds, 2 reside in our house, and I can spend hours watching, reading about, and trying to paint these charming creatures.

Valentine Inchies: Classroom Results

A few posts back I presented a Valentine Inchie idea and I wanted to show the results with Grade 2......Click on picture to see larger.

I know, I know there is a space but it's that last kid who has been away and just finished hers, we are letting it dry and then the board will be full!

Valentine Inchies

Here is a Valentine project that can be done 2 ways..... the kids can each make up their own collection of "inchies" or each child makes a class set of one type of "inchie" and then the kids do an exchange.

They are kinda of like miniature valentines that the kids can share.

Glue Stamped Papers

When putting together an art project my first priority is to get the kids to make as many of the materials as I can.

Now I'll admit it's easy to walk into a scrap booking or art supply store and fall in love with all the different papers....but it's so much more fun to make you own (cheaper too)!

Whenever I give one of my presentations I always talk about building a paper stash.  What I mean by this is as you work on a project make a few extra papers...they always come in handy. Store them by color and pull them out when you need a quick cut and paste project.  Because the papers are handmade the project will look incredible and the kids will remember all the techniques they used to create them.

Metal Tape

It all started with these foam swords.....well then we had to make some shields. So I brought out my metal tape and began contemplating all the projects you could use it for ........

Like this forged metal picture.  I'm showing you 2 photos as the metal loses it's shine under the scanner.

or this fairy picture.

Now you get it from the hardware store...usually near the metal ducting section.  At Home Depot I find it with the duct tape but this stuff is real metal.  It's thicker than foil and the adhesive they use is incredibly sticky.  It costs about $12.00 for a 40 ft. roll and is about 2 inches wide.

I lay it out flat in pieces (don't take off the backing) and then using a dull pencil draw a design. The tape is heavy enough that the pencil etches the design into the tape.

You can also antique or burnish it with a little acrylic paint.  I use my fingers and rub it into all the little spaces.

Then using a paper towel remove as much paint as you want for an antiqued look.

I've also used it in my embosser for instant stickers.  For a larger design you can use 2 pieces of tape side by side. 

For the shields I cut a shape out of some cardboard edged it with duct tape and added a handle at the back.

The boys then painted them.

Made some designs on the metal tape......

and created their shields.

For the forged steel pictures the design was cut out piece by piece and etched.

The pieces were then burnished.

The backing was then removed and the metal tape pieces placed onto the background.  CAREFUL...this tape is really sticky.

and that's it.  Once you start using this tape you'll find a lot of uses.  The adhesive is sticky enough for virtually any surface..wood, plastic, metal, ceramic.  It makes awesome labels for things like plant tags and it is much cheaper than buying metal embossing sheets from the craft store and it has the glue built in.

Next time you're at the hardware store pick some up.

Guest Post

Hey Everyone,

I'm guest posting today on alpha mom.

So if you're interested in this art project you can read all about it here.

See you soon.

Art Exhibition

Here are some pictures of the art exhibition we had going on during Parent/Teacher interviews.  Click on any photo to see larger.   

Here is the Grade 4 Paper Doll and mural taken from this Feb Post.

Here is the Grade 1 display.  Paper mache Penguins and Polar Bear paintings.

Grade 3 made these adorable puppets all hand sewn with Canada flags on their "Olympic" mittens!

Some window paintings by Grade 3.

Work by Grade 2

Work by Grade 5

Great work everyone.  There was lots more that I didn't get pictures of.

Take care.

First Nations Headresses - Art Project

Well we finished our Headresses in time for Parent/Teacher interviews and here are the results.  This project is in relation to the Fur Trade unit Grade 5 are taking in Social Studies.  We discussed how furs were often traded for beads to decorate clothing and ceremonial objects.


You can click on photo to see larger.

Great job Grade 5!!

We started out by drawing a head in profile...the kids used a 1/2 sheet of 90lb watercolor paper.  I asked them to try and fill the space with the head as we were mounting them on a full sheet of black posterboard.

We talked a bit about placement of features....to try and keep the tip of the nose as the center of the head and not the eyes..to extend out with a rounded skull that connects back to the jaw line...to add a jaw line so the head and neck are distiguished from one another.

I then asked then to draw a band for the headress that sort of looks like a boomerang and a large circular medallion.  We cut these out of white posterboard.

You can test the size ...the heads were already cut out and we measured on the posterboard where the forehead was and where we wanted the band to end.  This made the sketching out easier.

I had printed off some reference photos for them to help them along.

Then the painting started.  They had to paint the head...the band (it needed to have a design as it was to show beading), the medallion, and then as many feathers as they could fit on another 1/2 sheet of watercolor paper in assorted sizes.

The kids are using disk tempera.

I also asked them to paint a square of newspaper in at least 2 colors using liquid tempera for the beads we were going to make...you could also use photocopier paper for this.

We then cut out all our components.  It was easier to paint our feathers uncut and this also decreased the amount of curling when they dried.

We then glued our heads down on our black poster board taking care to move our heads to the side giving us room for the headress.

Using fine sharpies we added lines to our medallion and band to make it appear beaded...we are trying to alternate our lines like shingles on a roof.

We then hold our band up to the head to see where the feathers should go and start gluing them down...here we have a board over the face to help the glue dry flat.


We used some real colored feathers as well to help fill out our headress.

We then glued our band into place.

We took our bead paper and cut it into long triangles. 

We then took a pencil and began rolling the paper starting with the wide end first.

When you are about 1/2 way down the paper apply some glue to the center of the remaining paper.

Continue rolling.

And then slide the bead off the pencil.

We made a hole thru our medallion...strung some beads on a piec of yarn with some pony beads mixed it and knotted our yarn.  We then glued our medallion in place on the band about where the ear would be.

...and that was it.

We had lots of Leprechaun traps arriving on Tuesday.......

but no Leprechauns were caught yesterday although they mixed up everyone's shoes in the classrooms.


I'll see you next time with some photos of the school wide art display that was put together for Parent/Teacher interviews.

Take care.