3D Fluttering Butterfly

Looking for something bright and fun for your last bulletin board....why not these fluttering butterflies.

Made from 2 butterflies to look like it's fluttering off your display.
















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- nice painting paper for background, I use Sunworks white construction paper.  It's not really construction paper but a great drawing paper.  You could also use 90lb wc paper.
- white cardstock
- disk tempera paint
- green, red, white and yellow acrylic or liquid tempera
- paper scraps, book pages, brown kraft paper, recycling
- coloured cardstock scraps
- pipe cleaner
- tacky glue
- oil pastels or crayons
- optional: rubbing alcohol and eye dropper

PROCEDURE:

Tape background paper to art board.

Draw in a rough horizon line.

Paint in your sky with blue disk tempera.  I wanted to give it some texture, like all the fluff flying around right now from trees and dandelions.

So while it is wet I take an eye dropper and some rubbing alcohol.

Drop onto your wet paint.  It creates this effect.  Don't panic if it looks a little brown or grey in the center of the drop.  That will dry and go away.

This technique also works with acrylic paint but the secret is having wet watery paint.  Brush on a little bit of water to your wet acrylic to get it to work.

Paint in the green grass.  Set aside to dry.

Take your scraps of paper and tear some strips.

Glue onto a sheet of white cardstock.  This will be your extra grass.

Let glue set up for a while.

When set,  paint with acrylic or liquid tempera.  You want the paint thin enough you can still read the words of the text.

Set aside to dry.

While your papers are drying take a 1/2 sheet of copier paper and a 1/2 sheet of cardstock.

Sketch your butterfly shape.  You want 2 the same size. You could draw one, cut it out and then trace around it or use a template.

I added some oil pastel.  You could also use wax crayon.

Paint with disk tempera.

Paint the back of the cardstock one as well.

When the background and grass paper are dry start cutting out strips (pointy at top) and glue onto your background.

I added some extra details to my butterflies with scraps of coloured cardstock and.....

a little extra paint just to jazz them up a bit.

Glue the copier paper butterfly into place on the background.

Bend 1/2 a pipe cleaner and glue in place for the antennae.

take the cardstock butterfly and fold in half.

Run some glue on that fold line.

Stick into center of other butterfly. Let it set up for awhile and then close the fold a bit again.  You want to keep a nice flutter to it.

That's it.

See you next time.

Gail

Warm and Cool Butterflies

This is a project I did with 100 kinders last week.




They got to do some painting, some printmaking, cutting and pasting and they turned out terrific.

Here are some of the butterflies in process.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- canvas board
- paper
- acrylic paint in warm and cool colours
- pool noodles, paper rolls, and/or other round items for printmaking
- pencil and scissors
- tacky glue
- scraps of coloured paper
- buttons
- large glass gems, flat on one side
- pipe cleaners
- pony beads
- glue gun, to be used by adult only
- Mod podge

PROCEDURE:

Whenever I'm shopping for supplies at the Dollar store (which is often) I pick up canvas board.

It is a great deal. The 5"X 7" pack gives you 3 boards for a dollar, the 7"X 9"gives you 2 for a dollar.

For this project we are using the 7"x 9". You could also just do this on paper if you prefer.

I had a discussion with the kids about warm and cool colours.

We want our background in cool colours and our butterflies in warm colours.

The kids picked either blue or green for the background.

They painted the canvas board with a big brush.

I then handed out light blue paint or dark green paint.  I advised the kids they had to stay in their colour selection, no blue and green mixed.

We then used sponges and added some variation to our canvas board.


Set aside to dry.

I handed out paper to all the kids, we discussed warm colours again.  I grouped the kids at the tables by what warm colour they wanted to use. (Red, Orange, Pink)


I held back yellow for our printmaking.

We painted the paper in our warm colour.

I handed out cut up pool noodles and paper tubes.

We switched warm colours between the tables and I added yellow.

The kids then stamped on circles.





Set aside to dry.  All of our papers and canvas board dried in about 45 minutes during which the kids had snack and recess.

Hand back the painted pieces.

Fold the warm painted paper.

I had the kids turn their papers so the fold was on the left.

I explained to the Kinders that we can make a butterfly using the number 3.


We wanted large 3's not tiny ones.

The kids then cut out their 3, cutting it while folded in one go.

They measured it on their background canvas, if it was too big we trimmed it down.  The butterfly could be horizontal or vertical.



We then glued them on.

I took some black card stock and ran it through my crimper.

The kids then cut the body of the butterfly from this paper.  We talked about how it is a long hotdog shape.



Glue this is place.

To make the head of the butterfly I gave a large glass gem to each student.

They traced around it on a little piece of paper.

The kids drew on faces on the paper using sharpie and pencil crayons.





The circles were then cut out.

Using Mod podge paint the flat side of the large gem.

Then place the face on the Mod podge.


The Mod podge will dry clear and you will see the face through the gem.

Glue head into place using tacky glue.

The kids glued on a few buttons.

I gave them scraps of coloured paper so they could add to their butterfly.

Take a pipe cleaner, cut in half and have an adult glue gun it in place above the head.

At the top of the pipe cleaner add a bead, fold over a little bit of the end to hold the pipe cleaner in place.

Glue a piece of ribbon to the back of the canvas for a hanger.

Finally you can add a coat of Mod podge to add that nice shiny finish and glue everything down really well.

That's it.


Great work Kindergarten!

See you next time.


Gail