Leaf Rubbings

Leaf Rubbings 

We had some spare time today so our filler activity was to do leaf rubbings. I always love when a child has never seen this done before... it is like magic! So go gather some leaves, some crayons and paper and watch the image come up like magic... remember to use a lot of color and fill the page!

One student who had done this before had a great suggestion. Trace the outside of the leaf for some contour images and then put it under and do the rubbing.

Card Making

Card Making

Another great thing to do with printed papers or art that you want to cut down and repurpose is card making. Sometimes I even have my kids paint or draw on small papers just for the purpose of

 making cards later. It is a great way to have unique blank cards ready when you need to send that

 special note. For this project I just took the papers we printed a few weeks ago and cut them into 4 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch pieces. I then made white blank cards out of card stock. The kids picked their favorite prints and neatly glued them on to the cards... Maybe you will get a sweat beautiful note soon!

Paper Weaving

Paper Weaving

Today we found another purpose for our beautiful papers that we printed a few weeks ago- WEAVING!

I took the printed paper and sliced the "warp" within about 1/2 inch of the edge. I used this edge to mount the the "warp" to a piece of construction paper.

I took other printed papers and sliced them into 1 inch wide "weft" pieces.

We talked about the process of over under and that it was a pattern. We called our "weft" snakes and our "warp" grass. The snake had to weave in and out of grass, the next snake had to start in the opposite pattern... then we made the snakes "kiss" as we brought them close together and tight to the top! When all our snakes were in the grass we glued their tales down so they would not fall out!

Batik

Batik

Today's preschool art class was all about Batik... Well faux Batik that is. We used regular copy paper (because it crumples well), crayons, and an acrylic wash to create images that echo the technique of Batik fabric dyeing. Batik is a method (originally used in Java) of producing colored designs on textiles by dyeing them, having first applied wax to the parts to be left undyed. The wax that is placed on the textile by the artist acts as a resist and will keep the dye from penetrating that area. In some cases the wax is cracked first so that the dye seeps through the cracks forming 

another layer of design for the artist. 

In our version of Batik we are using crayons for the wax, crumpling the paper to "crack" the wax, and then using the acrylic wash to "dye" the image and the paint remains in the cracks creating interest.

After a little trial and error I had the kids use black crayons to make a random design on the white paper. Next we used all the colors we wanted to fill in the new spaces we made with our black crayons.

When the entire paper (or most for some kids) was filled with crayon we wadded it up, crumpled it and then flattened it back out. Finally we added the paint wash and used paper towels to carefully wipe off the excess paint. 

 designing 

Getting started

Thinking about color!

crumpling a masterpiece!

Adding the paint

less crayon = more of a crackled resist painting

Lots of crayon, look closely to see the purple cracks...

spider!

This image was one of my examples and was really washed out after the paint was added. 1. I would recommend darker colors for the wash, 2. as you can see I went back after it dried and used some black crayon to help the image pop back out. 

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns - TAKE II

The study of Jasper Johns continued this week with a different group of students. We decided to experiment with Jasper Johns inspired letters. 

We did collage work first. We used some newspapers, but also some pages out of old books with great pictures and maps! We did some ripping and also some precision cutting to make the backgrounds just right. The students then used permanent markers to draw the letters on the collage. Finally, they used paints and chalk pastels to finish out the work.

The results were fantastic!

collage work

start painting

once the collage is done, add letters in ink

Little people love paint too!

 Using pastels really enhanced the collage work. 

Pastels and Paint mixed 

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns

Preschool art class worked on Jasper Johns inspired collage paintings this week. We looked at some of Jasper Johns' work and talked about his use of symbols. We looked at his number paintings and talked about the process of collaging and then adding layers of paint and symbols to create a piece of artwork. Finally we discussed the difference between warm and cool colors and contrast. 

Then we got to work, we cut up and tore pieces of newspaper and created a collage on our papers .

When our collage was finished we began to paint our papers in only cool colors.

BEAUTIFUL

While our paintings were drying we all got the numbers 1, 2, and 3 and began painting them in only warm colors. We used paint brushes and q-tips to decorate our numbers for our final piece.

These were still drying at the end of class, but this is a detail of how they will look when finished! I love how the some of the ink in the ads in the collage resisted the paint.
Thanks to laughpaintcreate.blogspot.com for the great idea.

We finished these up today!