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

Self Portraits and Art Journal Page

Don't you just love self portraits……it's got to be one of my favourite lessons.




I'll show you how to do this one….

……..and how to do an awesome journal page using your practice copy from the first project.

So this variation of my self portrait lesson was done with grade 4.

We put a bit of a math spin on it, discussing fractions when drawing the proportions of the face.  We also did patterns for the background.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- we used 12"x12" hardboards for our backgrounds, you could use paper or cardboard
- acrylic paint
- good quality drawing paper
- mirrors
- pencil and white drawing erasers (Staedtler or triangular drafting erasers).  I have a class set that travels with me and I tell the kids don't use your pink erasers or the one on the end of your pencil.
- coloured pencils or pencil crayons
- fine sharpies
- printmaking shapes, I use cut up pool noodles and these foam blocks I got from the Dollar Store (circles, triangles, squares, etc.), recycled corks from wine bottles, little cups
- scissors and glue
- Mod Podge or Duraclear for sealing, optional

PROCEDURE:

Self Portrait Board:

Now I do self portraits a lot so I have a full class set of mirrors. I got mine at the Dollar Store.  I added some hockey tape to any that did not seem too sturdy.  Kids can be a bit rough with them.

They are a worthwhile investment for any school as each class can do several portrait drawing projects throughout the year.

We start off doing a practice portrait using regular copier paper.  We go step by step as a class.

The hardest part is getting the kids to sketch lightly until they are ready to commit.


My directions for drawing a face can be found HERE and depending on the age of the students I'll also give them a handout or have large step by step pictures up on the board.

When the practice drawing is done I give them a piece of good quality drawing paper.

For this variation I had them do the face shape, ears, neck and shoulders, and outline of the hair.


They then used some flesh tone acrylic paint and painted in the face, ears, and neck.

I keep 3 main colours of skin tone premixed.  (light, medium, and dark).  The kids can usually find a good match but we can alter if we need too.

Let face dry.

While the face is drying paint the 12"x12" hardboard or background a solid colour.

Your face should be dry now.  Using a light hand with the pencil sketch in the rest of the proportions.

Add the eyes, nose and mouth.

When the features are drawn in pencil we added some white paint with a tiny brush for the eyeball.


Now add colour and shading with your coloured pencils.

Your background board will be dry now.  We added patterns to ours and I'll describe how we did this when we do the art journal page.



Cut out your portrait and glue on top of your background.



Art Journal Page:
This is a great project if your students are really self conscious about their drawings.  By painting it a different colour, almost like a fauvist portrait, it helps them loosen up a bit.  They won't expect it to be perfect.

Take your practice drawing.  This is one of my student's.

Go over the outline with a black sharpie.

Squeeze a little acrylic or tempera onto your palette.

Add water to make it inky.

Paint over your drawing.


Let dry.

Paint in the whites of the eyes.

Add detail and shading with your coloured pencils.

Paint a background colour on to your art journal page.

Now add some prints.  I'm using sequin waste paper, cut up pool noodles, corks, little cups, etc.


For the first project the Grade 4's chose 2 shapes and then made repeating patterns on their backgrounds.

While the paint is out do the opposite page so you have a background ready to go for next time.

I used the leftover blue paint as the main colour.

Add some stamps.

And then I added this ADMIT ONE ticket.




That's it, you just completed 2 great projects.


Take care everyone.
Gail

Papier Mache Squirrels

I hope everyone here in Canada had a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.

I made these squirrels 2 weeks ago with a Grade 1 class.

They turned out adorable and the kids were very proud of themselves












MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- paper roll (paper towel centre or toilet roll)
- cardboard
- pipecleaner
- newspaper
- masking tape
- paper towel strips
-white glue and water mixed together in a 1 to 1 ratio
- acrylic or tempera paint in Fall colours
- scraps of felt
- 22 gauge wire
- paper
- feather boa
- glue gun, adult to use only
- googly eyes

PROCEDURE:

Take your paper roll and stuff with a newspaper page.  Squash another page of newspaper into an oval shape. Tape this to one end of the paper tube with masking tape.  I have it angling out to look like a head.

Put a few pieces of masking tape over other end of paper tube to keep newspaper inside.

Cut 2 legs out of cardboard. They are about half as tall as the cardboard tube.  The foot comes out and they are straight on the bottom.


Take your pipe cleaner and make 2 loops at both ends twisting the pipe cleaner onto itself.  It ends up being approximately 7" or 15cm.
For Grade 1, I did this prep ahead of time for them.  Older grades (grade 3 and up) could do this for themselves.

Set up your workspace for papier mache.  We worked on top of a piece of wax paper.


Get your glue and water mixture going and hand out some paper towel strips to everyone.

I learned this great tip from the art of education, I made up a newspaper strip for each child with their name on it.  When they were finished their papier mache they stuck on the strip. Great for keeping track of every one's work.

Dip your strips in the glue mixture and start covering your paper roll armature.

I asked the kids to cross the strips.  We added a belly to the front.

Put on that name strip.

Add a little papier mache to the front of the leg and papier mache those hand loops on the pipe cleaner as well.





Set aside to dry for 2 days.  Most of our paper tube armatures would stand up for drying.  Turn leg and arms over halfway thru the drying time so everything dries out completely.

When the pieces are all dry paint with acrylic or tempera paint in Fall colours.

I made some wired paper for the base of the tail.  You take one strip of paper, run a line of glue down the length, lay your piece of wire into this glue.  Take your glue and do some zig zags all over the paper.  Place another paper strip on top sandwiching the wire between them. I also used my fingers and ran down the sides of the wire to make sure it was secure in that sandwich.

Let dry.


We cut them into a large feather shape.

Paint the feather shape in Fall colours  on both sides.

I bought some feather boas at the Dollar store.  Cut into pieces about as long as the feather shape.  Glue to one side.

Now it's time to glue together.  We used a glue gun to put on the legs and arm strip.


This enabled us to angle the legs if needed in order to get the squirrel to stand.

Glue tail onto the back of the squirrel.

With scraps of felt add a nose and ears.

We glued on googly eyes as well.

The Grade ones went on a nature hike and collected some pine cones.  We added these as well.

Great work Grade one!




See you next time.

Gail