Owl Assemblage

I know I have my fair share of owl projects on the blog but I couldn't resist another.



This is a recycled assemblage that includes some text.  It was a joint collaboration of by my 3 kids and I love the idea so much I am looking to incorporate it into this year's Art Program.






My kids absolutely love these "Look a Like" books from Joan Steiner.  When we go to the library they repeatedly take these out again and again....even my 13 yr old.

I started this project by having them look at these books to get the creative juices flowing. 

The kids then went on a treasure hunt looking for items in the recycling bin, the junk drawer, & odds and ends from the craft room.

For this owl we used:

- a scrap of shelf liner for the head
-,round corrugated packaging from a cookie tin for the body
-  assorted rings from bottles and a sour cream container (you know those rings you have to break to open) for the eyes and wings
- bread tags for the feet
- a picture hanger for the beak
- 2 acorn caps for the eyes
- some shells, rickrack, and pipe cleaner for the leaves and branches
- some old wood letters (you could cut some from cardboard) and a piece of a drinking straw for the OWL
- some washers for feathers and for the text

We glued all the pieces to a piece of cardboard for our background.  We used tacky glue.

We let it dry and then covered it with a coat of gesso but you could also use white acrylic paint.

When it was dry we experimented a bit with the paint.  At first we just did a brown wash on the owl and then painted the background with a black wash.


The kids were not impressed so we tried again.

This time we added color, for the leaves and branches, the beak, and the feet.  We also made the OWL white as well as around the eyes.


The boys added some details around the eyes with the silver sharpie and then my 13 yr old added the text with some suggestions from Mom of course!

I then covered it with a coat of glossy Mod podge and woohoo it looks 100 X's better.

See you next time.

Felted Puppets

Here are some felted puppets my kids made about a month ago.


Jeff (age 7) made the dog and it hasn't left his side since, except for a short stint at the textile session I presented in Saskatoon.

I get alot of requests for a felting tutorial and I have been reluctant in the past because there are lots of them out there as well as some terrific books.


These puppets are a little different so I thought I'd give you a mini tutorial about them.

When felting you need some wool fleece, I get mine from a weaving shop near Calgary called Shuttleworks.  I always tell potential felters not to buy their fleece from the craft or fabric stores as they tend to have outrageous prices for very little fleece.  I buy plain white fleece and then I dye it myself with Kool aid.  You get wonderful colors and your fleece will smell like the Kool aid flavor as well which the kids find pretty cool.

To dye your fleece place one packet of kool aid into a canning jar and add a cup or two of boiling water.  The amount of water you add depends on how much fleece you are dyeing.

Stir till the powder has dissolved.

Stuff some fleece into the jar.

You want to make sure it is completely immersed.

Let the fleece sit for a while.  Half an hour or so...when you go back to check on it you'll find that they dye has been absorbed by the fleece and the water will be clear.

Now to start felting you need some fleece.  An old towel to work on, some textured type mat to felt on to help build friction,  ( I use sushi mats, bubble wrap, or the anti slip shelf liner with the bumpy surface), some soap either dish soap or bar, some warm water, and some fine netting.  An old lace curtain from the dollar store will work or some tulle.

When felting you want to have that textured mat to lay your fleece upon and then the netting to lay on top of the fleece.  The netting helps you suds up the fleece.

Now when making an item like a puppet, purse, slippers or a vessel you need to felt around something.  It needs to be able to withstand the water and soap.  For something that is felted flat for a pocket.... like a purse or slippers you can use a piece of heavy plastic, something like the sound insulation layer they use for hardwood floors or that white spongy plastic they use in packaging around electronics and such.
  I have used rocks to felt little vessels like the one shown here in the picture, but I find rocks heavy for the kids to work with you also need a pretty big rock to make a decent sized puppet.

For these puppets I used these plastic cups I had bought a few years ago for Christmas.  They were cheap and they had a nice textured surface so we didn't have to use an extra texture layer.

To start you layer on your fleece.  It's hard to show in a picture.  You don't want each layer running in the same way but criss crossed over multiple layers.  For the puppets we used about 5 layers of fleece.  You can see what I mean about layering from this photo of a flat design.

    Once you have your layers on wet with some warm water and soap up your fleece.

For the puppets we used a bar of soap as it was easy to just rub it on directly.

When the fleece is wet and soapy place your netting on top and start your rubbing or friction.  I usually find it takes longer than the books say. The puppets probably took 20-30 minutes of rubbing to get the fleece to felt.  I let the kids take breaks and we just added more water and soap when needed.  If you find a hole starting to form just add some extra fleece and rub into place.

The tentacles for the squid puppet were formed by rolling lengths of wet fleece, forming little "dreadlocks".  We then felted them into place on the puppet body.

When the fleece is stuck together and you can't pull it apart it's done.  Roll your cup into a dry towel and roll back and forth several times.  Leave on the cup to dry.

When dry you can remove from cup, trim the puppet on the bottom and sew on some eyes, tongues, ears, etc.

If you find a hole where the fleece "moved" during felting you can just add a stitch or two to close it.

That's it.

Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures during the felting process so I hope you can get the idea from what I have posted.

Paper Tapas from the South Pacific

Tapa cloth or bark cloth is a traditional  textile from the islands in the South Pacific.  You can see some examples of tapa cloth here.




In the school setting we try to duplicate this process using paper.  This lesson was adapted from my favorite book "Art from Many Hands" by Jo Miles Schuman.

The word Tapa is Samoan or Tahitian depending on what resource you consult and describes the border of the cloth. Tapa cloth is made from harvesting breadfruit or paper mulberry trees.  The inner bark of the tree would be beaten to release the fiber much like flax is beaten to produce linen.  This fiber would then be flattened or "felted" if you will into sheets.  The resulting cloth was used for clothing, bedding, and household items.  Special cloth was made for religious occasions as well as for royalty.  It was quite fragile so it was made quite frequently.

Before we can make our Tapa cloth we need to make some design tablets.  Nice thing about these is once you make a set you can use them over and over again.

I used pieces of foam core board as I had some in my stash but you can easily do this on corrugated cardboard from the recycle bin.

Now traditional designs are based in nature including flowers, trees, fish, animals and birds as well as the sun and the moon.  In Tongo these design tablets were made on large leaves upon which thin strips of palm or coconut twine were sewn forming the design.  Here we make ours with regular household string.  Pencil in your design and then using tacky glue, glue pieces of string into place.

You also want to make these texture boards which just have lines of string.

Easiest way to make these is to smear some glue over the board and then wind your string around the board.

Now to simulate the bark cloth we are using brown paper bags or kraft paper.

You want to take your paper and crumple it over and over quite a few times.

You then can iron it out flat.

If you want it colored like the yellow cloth in the picture above, paint it with some tempera after you have ironed it flat.

Most Tapa cloth is based on a grid design.  Using a ruler make out this grid on your cloth.

Now you want to place a design board under your cloth and using crayon in either red, brown, or orange rub to bring up the image.

Now use the striped string board and in a different color of crayon rub this design around the image you have already brought up.

Don't rub the stripes on top of the design just around it.

 You now want to add some touches with some black tempera.

You can use the end of your paint brush for dots.

You can use a piece of cardboard to stamp in a striped design.

Finally you want to paint your border black.

and that's it.  You could spread this project over 2 sessions.  The first to create your design blocks and then a second to rub the designs and paint the cloth.


Fascinating project and there are lots of resources on the web in google images.  Give it a try.


We'll see you next time.

Poppy Mixed Media

Well this is the Remembrance Day project I have come up with for this year "Mixed Media Poppies". 

Tape off your watercolor or white sketch paper for that nice finished edge and then paint in your background color with disc tempera. 

While the paint is still wet cover with a layer of plastic wrap and smoosh it slightly.  Leave in place until dry. 

While your background is drying work on your poppy papers.  You want a few types.  In this one I'm using thicker liquid tempera and patting it in with the brush leaving some nice textured brush marks.

For this one I'm using the liquid tempera like glue and squishing some red tissue paper into the wet paint.  Cover with a top coat of paint as well.  It is similar to the technique I used in this post.

In this one I'm covering the paper with paint and then placing bubble wrap on top while wet.  Leave on til dry.

In this one I painted the paper a background red, left it to dry and then came in with a different color red and stamped in circles using a small plastic cup.

Make some green painted and textured paper at the same time.

You could also weave some poppies using the technique described in my "woven eye" post.

Paint around the weaving to finish them off.

When your poppy papers and background is dry start putting your picture together.


Cut out some stems from the green paper.  Don't forget to add a pod or two.

Cut a large circle from some of the poppy paper.  Don't worry about it being perfect...in fact for this project they look better if they are a bit off.

Add a second smaller circle and then use a black button for the center.  Glue into place.

Add some detailing with sharpie and crayon to add that extra bit of emphasis.

I also made little lines to represent the fuzziness on the stem and pod.

That's it.  We'll see you next time.

Here are the Poppies Grade 2 completed.

Great work students!