Nautical Inchies

Working my way through the last 2 weeks of school.  I'm doing these nautical inchies with Grade 5 tomorrow.



Now I love inchies, they make a great little art collection, but you can do each of these as a larger art project.

We have a lighthouse theme going.  I have been doing some planning work in my visual journal.














MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- 6 squares of wc paper, we are doing ours 3" x 3"
- disk tempera paint
- fine black sharpies
- scrap of bubble wrap
- old book page
- yellow oil pastel
- white, black, and red crayon
- white and red scrap paper
- tacky glue
- metal duct tape
- drinking straw
- acrylic paint in white, light brown, and a few bright colours
- coloured sharpies
- cheesecloth
- a little sand
- a few small shells
- letter stamps, printed text from the computer, or hand written
- black mounting paper

PROCEDURE:

Original inchies are 1" x1" but I find that way to small for the kids.  I like working with 2", 3", or even 4" squares.

For this project we are using 3" x 3".

Take your first square. Paint the top half with a pale sky blue using tempera disk paint  (white and blue mixed).

Wash your brush out.  Dip in plain water and scrub the paper where the 2 colours meet.  Blot on a paper towel and repeat until you have some white showing and it looks like an ocean wave.

Add some text and a few seagulls drawn in with sharpie.

Take another square.  Paint bright blue with disk tempera.

While the paint is still wet lay a scrap of bubble wrap on top.  Leave on until dry.

Paint half of an old book page.

When the book page is dry turn it over and sketch out a starfish.

Cut out, draw a few circles on it with sharpie.  Using a black crayon colour the edges.  This gives it a nice outline.

Glue onto the blue square with the bubble wrap impression.

On another square sketch out a lighthouse in pencil.

With a yellow oil pastel add the light and glow to the lighthouse.

Colour in the lighthouse with white crayon.  Add some red crayon to the top.

Paint over with purple disk tempera.

Take a kleenex and blot while the paint is still wet.

Paint the rocks black and the water deep blue.

Take another square.  Paint in a sky.

Take a kleenex and lift out a few clouds.

Paint in a green blue ocean.

Using scraps of white and red paper cut out a boat and 2 sails.

With a fine black sharpie add some details.

Paint a square blue.  Before the paint dries sprinkle on some salt.

Take some metal duct tape, using a pencil draw on a fish.

Using coloured sharpies add some colour to the fish.

Cut out.

Brush the salt off the now dry square.


Using white acrylic and a straw add a few bubbles.

Peel backing off fish and stick in place.  Using letter stamps add the word FISH.

Spread some glue on a square and lay on a piece of cheesecloth.




Let dry.

Paint with some sand coloured acrylic paint.

Select a few small shells and add some bright colour with acrylic paint.

Glue some sand onto the square.

Glue on the shells and add some text.

Glue onto some black paper and you're done.

Easy Father's Day Project

I'm in the midst of the Father's Day rush......fingers crossed that I make it!



This is a quick project I'm doing with a few schools and works for any grade.  I have seen this idea a few times and this is my take.








MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- camera and access to a printer
- corrugated cardboard
- plaster strips or white paint
- backdrop, you can just hang fabric or even tape a large piece of paper on the wall
- piece of wood, I used 1" x 6" spruce fence boards cut into 1' lengths
- black acrylic paint
- glue
- scissors
- Mod Podge
- picture hanger

PROCEDURE:

Make some large letters.  I cut mine out of cardboard squares.  I then used plaster strips to coat one side.

You can also paint them white.  You want a matte finish as it photographs the best.

Take photos.  I used a backdrop (tri- fold) with some grey fabric taped to it.



Print off photos in black and white on regular paper.  The size I used was 3"x 5".
Trim.

Sand all rough edges of your board.

Paint board with black acrylic paint.






(That was an adventure with 100 or so kids!)

Glue into position.

Give the board a nice coat of Mod Podge.  This seals the photos in place as well as giving it a nice shiny finish.

Add a picture hanger to the back if wanted and that's it.

Good luck with your own Father's Day rush.

'Very Hungry' Grade 1 Caterpillars

We had some 'very hungry caterpillars' in Grade 1 the last few days.

This is our new bulletin board display.














MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- photos
- paper for painting, sketch or wc, you need a long rectangle about 8"X 16" and a square 5"x5"
- black and red tempera disk paint
- plastic wrap, bubble wrap
- plastic lid to use for tracing
- coloured tissue paper cut in squares
- glue
- pipe cleaners
- 2 pony beads

PROCEDURE:

Take photos first.  I had the kids do 2 poses.  The first is the 'hungry caterpillar' one for this project ("open your mouth wide like biting a big piece of watermelon"), the second just a nice smiling face for our happy butterflies that we will be doing next week.  Print off on regular paper.

On our art boards we taped the 2 pieces of painting paper with a little masking tape to hold in place while painting.

We then painted our rectangles black.

While paint is still wet lay a piece of plastic wrap on top and squish in some wrinkles.  Leave in place until paint dries.

We then painted our squares red.

Lay a piece of bubble wrap on top. push down on it a bit and then leave on top while drying.

I made some cardboard templates by tracing around a plastic lid.  I kept moving it and tracing until I had a nice caterpillar shape.

The kids turned their black painted paper over (now dry) and traced around the template.


They then cut the caterpillar shape out.

With that same lid I used to make the template I had them trace around it on the red painted paper. Cut out.

Glue the red circle onto one of the ends of the caterpillar.

Starting near the head we made a line with the glue.  I had the kids choose either warm colours or cool colours of the tissue squares.  They then scrunched them up and added it to the glue.  This makes our caterpillars fuzzy.

Continue down the length of the caterpillar.

We then added 2 antennae with pipe cleaners and beads.  Fold the pipe cleaner down on the bead to hold in place.

You can also just use a longer pipe cleaner and fold in half.

We just taped ours to the back but you could use white glue or a glue gun.


That's one of the teachers joining in.

Glue photo on the red circle.

For the display we also painted some large leaves for our hungry caterpillars.

That's it.