Polar Bears Revisited

Last year I did a post on my Polar Bears but did not have many pictures of it's adaptation for the classroom. 

I completed this year's Polar Bears with Grade 1 last week and presented it as part of this weekend's workshop with Calgary teachers so I thought I would update this post for all of you out there in blogland!

At school we do this project on paper that is about 12 X 18............

so when I scan it you only see a portion of the picture.















MATERIALS REQUIRED:
- watercolor paper
- blue and purple tempera disks
- paintbrush
- gesso or white liquid tempera
- stencils (see template 1 and template 2)
- plastic cling wrap
- salt
- plastic cup
- kleenex
- fine sharpie

Tape down your paper to an art board.  I get the kids to lightly pencil in a horizon line.

They paint in a purple sky.

While the paint is wet we quickly wrap a Kleenex on the bottom of a plastic cup....


and then press onto the painting where we want the moon to be...count to 10 and then lift the cup.

We then take a little salt and add it to our sky hoping to get a little snow effect....make sure to leave that salt on until the sky is fully dry.

Paint in your ice.....

Have your plastic cling wrap ready to go and while the blue paint is still wet......

...lay it on the blue paint along the horizon line.

smoosh it a bit trying to get some wrinkles and little air pockets so you get that ice crystal appearance.  Leave the plastic wrap on to dry.


If the paint has dried before you were able to wrestle that plastic wrap onto it just re moisten it with another pass of the brush.

Take the template, cut it out and trace it onto thin cardboard (cereal box).  Then cut it out...I always cheat and just cut through one of the sides, I then just tape it back together.

I find with kids it's good to have lots of cardboard space outside of the stencil shape as they can get a little eager in their pouncing.

At the weekend workshop I gave everyone a little bear stencil that I cut out using the Cricut (come in handy when you need 80 stencils), using transparency sheets.

This art project can easily be adapted to a black bear project making a summer or fall background (note to self: Make up a Black Bear Stencil Project) hopefully you'll see that one soon posted!

When the background is dry remove the plastic wrap and brush off the salt.
The kids hold the stencil in place and pounce in white liquid tempera or gesso.  The gesso is nice because it so thick it actually adds a furry texture.

You need to wipe off the stencil a bit with paper towel before using it with the next student so you won't have any smudges.

I have the kids practice pouncing up and down, you don't want brushing back and forth as the paint brush bristles may actually get under the stencil.

 


Let dry and then using the sharpie you can add the nose, eyes, and a few claws.

That's it...Great work Grade 1!!

See you next time.