Dandelion Poetry Project

The abundance of dandelions in Calgary this year has provided me with lots of inspiration.  You might remember this project.

Well.......in a similar vein I have been doing a collaborative project with my colleague Kim McCullough. ( a teacher who is a fantastic author).  She also collaborated with me on the Woven Nest.

We are trying to develop projects that combine creative writing and the visual arts.

The premise for this project is "dandelion wishes".  You can click on the picture to see larger.







MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- watercolor or heavywieght sketch paper
- disk tempera
- paintbrush
- fine and heavy sharpie
- white sharpie, white gel pen, or computer/hand written text
- glue if using computer/handwritten text

We did this project with Grade 4.  Kim spent a Language Arts class with the kids discussing dreams and wishes.  By the end of the class they had typed out a poem.

We started the art portion by sketching out a silhouette profile.  After seeing the results I would advise all future classes to sketch out  the hand and/or arm. It just ties it together better.  They also sketched in the seed head and some loose seeds blowing away.

I had a few reference photos to assist them.  Next time I think I will have them pose and have a fellow student sketch out their profile.

They then painted in their backgrounds using disk tempera.  Most opted for the twilight scene.

To get that spotted texture you can see in the first picture just sprinkle on some water drops while the background is only partially dry.

Let dry.

Using black tempera they painted in the larger portions of the silhouette and then used black sharpies for the finer detailing of the seeds.

Here you can really see that spotted texture.


Next you need to add the text of your poem.

You can use white pencil crayon, white gel pens, white sharpies, or cut out typed/handwritten text which you then glue into place.

Click on photos for a closer view.

Great work Grade 4!