Little Haunted Houses

We had a busy week at school doing lots of Halloween and Remembrance Day projects.




This is a cute Haunted House that I'm  working on with Grade 2.

At night you light it up with a battery operated votive.

We are finishing ours tomorrow but here is a picture of them in progress.










MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- small recycled box, we used soap boxes and little cereal boxes
- a paper roll
- heavy cardboard for the base
- rectangle of corrugated cardboard for the roof
- acrylic paint
- vellum or tissue paper
- scraps of paper
- small branch
- tacky glue
- glue gun, to be used by adults only
- moss
- battery operated votive
- Halloween embellishments

PROCEDURE:

Check your recycling box for some good Haunted House materials.






The corrugated cardboard was the packing material in my last order of art supplies.  You could use heavy paper run thru a crimper for a similar look.

Take your small box and gently open up saving all the tabs.

This will be the main part of our Haunted House and we are opening it up as it is easier to paint the inside. Most boxes have a shiny coating outside and need several layers of paint.

This also makes it easier to cut the windows.

Cut a hole in what will be the back of the house for the votive.

I did this ahead of time for all the kids.

In the front of the house and the side draw out some window shapes.  It is ok if they are a bit wonky it's a haunted house.

Cut them out.

Paint the house with acrylic paint.  The kids could choose from purple, orange, or green.




Set aside to dry.

The paper roll can be made into a castle or a turret.


To make a castle make little cuts all around and then cut out sections.


I made the turrets ahead of time gluing a paper hat onto the paper roll.

Paint it to match the house.

Paint the roof with black acrylic paint.

To cover the windows we are using vellum.  You can use tissue paper but vellum is much more durable.

Cut a piece of vellum that will cover all the windows.

To stick into place put glue around all the windows and then on the border of the piece of vellum.

Flip the vellum and press into place.

Now you need to glue the box back together except for the bottom tabs.


At school we used a glue gun but you can also use tacky glue.

Put some glue on the inside of the bottom tabs and then glue to the piece of heavy cardboard.


Glue the castle or turret onto the base as well.

Cut the roof to fit the box and then glue the roof into place.

Paint the base black covering the tabs of the box as well.

The small branch will be the tree.  Cut out some leaves out of the paper scraps and glue to the branch.

Glue the tree to the base.  If you lean it on the house it helps to hold it up.

Glue some moss at the bottom of the tree.

Using scraps of paper decorate your house.

Add a door and some extra windows, a jack o'lantern and anything else to make it look spooky.

I printed off some titles.  Add some colour with disk tempera and then glue to the roof.

Add a votive thru the back and you have a spooky Haunted House for Halloween.




Have a Happy Halloween everyone!

Gail

LOVE Canvas: In the Style of Robert Indiana

So I have been meaning to come up with a semi sculptural piece as a nod to Robert Indiana.

With Valentine's Day on the horizon I got my chance.

All of us have seen this "LOVE" arrangement at some time or another but do not realize it's Pop Art origins. Indiana continues to build on and explore use of his iconic work.  Last year he created a version for Google (search page) to display on Valentine's Day.

Now I didn't tilt my "O" like Indiana as it just didn't work with the canvas as well as the fact that my "O" is quite circular.  An oval "O" would tilt better.























MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- air dry clay, I used La Doll
- pre primed canvas, (I get mine by the 10 pack when they are on sale at Michaels) or you can use a piece of heavy cardboard
- paper towel
- small amount of water
- acrylic paint
- white gel pen
- fine black sharpie
- Aleene's Tacky glue
- Mod Podge

PROCEDURE:

Before sculpting I took a piece of cardboard and cut a square that was the size of the letter I wanted.  This help me measure as I went along.

Pull a chunk of clay from the package. ( You can also recreate this in natural clay and fire it in the kiln, making a slab for the letters to rest on.)

Form your letters.  use a small amount of water if needed to help smooth out any cracks.

For this project my letters were about 1 cm or 1/2 an inch thick.

Once you have all your letters completed leave them to dry on a paper towel.

Drying time will vary but air dry clay will take about 24 hrs.

Paint your canvas or cardboard substrate.


I used acrylic paint.

Paint your clay letters.  I wanted mine to have a bandanna type design so I basecoated them in different colors.

Once dry I used a white gel pen and a fine black sharpie to make my designs.

Glue to your canvas or cardboard with tacky glue.

Finally you can add a coat of Mod podge to help seal and really secure those letters to the canvas.

That's it.  This project can be easily modified into a paint and paper composition if you are short on time.  Pop art is always a hit with the kids and be sure to check out more of Robert Indiana"s work.








See you next time.

Wood Houses : Art and Poetry Project

This is a project that I came up with a few months ago.  I used it at Christmas time for the Grade 3's but you can use it anytime.

It's a house that also has a poem incorporated with it.

Mine states:

" My House
Is warm and snug
full of people I love
and a DOOR
to shut out the
world"

(I think I was  a little stressed at the time)

The kids had a great time making them and it was fairly easy to execute.











MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- piece of wood 5 inches high, I used 1 1/2 X 3 1/2 timber ( or 2 by 4's)
- saw
- sandpaper
- acrylic paint
- wax paper
- white paper, colored paper
- pencil crayons, fine sharpies
- tacky glue
- thin cardboard or chipboard
- Mod podge
- a poem printed out in computer text or hand written

PROCEDURE:

Now the timbers I bought were 8' long.  My volunteer carpenter (thanks Mr. B) cut them on an angle in 5" sections.  He cut a 10" piece and then cut into 2.

You get 19 houses for each 8' timber.

I had the kids sand all the edges.  They loved that part.




We wrote their names on the bottom in sharpie.

I then had the kids paint the houses with acrylic paint.  No need to paint the top or bottom.Place each house on a small piece of wax paper.

The kids tended to paint the front first and then we set them upright and turned the wax paper so they could reach all the sides.

Let dry.

Take your cardboard or chipboard and cut out a roof.  We used rectangles that were 4" by 2 1/2".

You want a little overhang at the sides.

 Paint one side of the cardboard.

Let dry.

Now we will work on the windows.

For the Grade 3's I made up a sheet of windows for them.

This way they could do their drawings and then cut out the windows.

The top windows were 1"x1"
- the big front window was 1.5"x1.5"
- we had a back window that was 2" by 2.25"
- and 2 side windows that were 1" X 1.5"

Using pencils, pencil crayons, colored paper and fine sharpies the kids made little scenes in the windows. For the Christmas houses there were a lot of Christmas trees and decorations as well as family members.  Make sure you don't use washable markers as they will smear when you go to Mod podge the house.

Glue windows into place.  Make sure the top windows are about an inch down from the top edge of the wood so you can see them after you attach the roof.  The door was a rectangle cut from a piece of colored paper with a door knob drawn in.

For the roof cut little shingle shapes out of colored paper and glue into place starting with the top row.  Stagger each row so it looks like real shingles.  The kids also drew in some of the shingles with a white gel pen to mix it up a bit.  Attach roof to the house with tacky glue.  You want the back of the roof flush to the back of the house giving you a nice overhang in the front.

Print out or nicely hand write your poem.  Cut out sections and glue into place on the house.  Finally Mod Podge the whole thing for a nice shiny finish.  If  the windows wrinkle a bit don't worry everything will flatten out as the Mod Podge dries.

That's it.  The grade 3's wrote a short sentence starting with "My House at Christmas....."

I can envision a nice Valentine themed house.

See you soon.