Peruvian Masks

As part of my current residency I did these masks with Grade 2/3 today.






They are studying Peru in Social Studies so we are investigating the gold masks of the Inca.

This was an excellent lesson.  We completed most of the project in a 1 hr session.

Here are some of the masks that we made today.  We still have to add the sequins and coloured paper.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- canvas board or rectangular piece of heavy cardboard, ours are 6"x8"
- black and gold acrylic paint
- scraps of thin and thick cardboard, paper rolls
- little wood cubes (Dollar store), little wood sticks (Dollar store)
- doilies
- tacky glue
- rick rack and trim
- gold and silver sequins
- black and turquoise paper
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

I handed out the boards and we put our names on the back with sharpie.

Working on top of wax paper or newspaper, each student painted the canvas board with black acrylic paint.

Set aside to dry.

I gave each student an oval cut from corrugated cardboard.  This is the base of the face.

They then collected materials from the recycled stash.  I pre cut the heavy pieces of cardboard into smaller more manageable pieces.

We built up our mask details and glued them on with tacky glue.

Student work in process.

When it is all glued down we painted the whole thing with gold acrylic paint.

Embellish with sequins and bits of coloured paper.


At school we skipped this step as we were out of time and just glued our masks to the base board.

For my sample I put glue on the back of the mask but at school the masks were still wet so we put the glue on the black boards (they were dry by the time our masks were painted), and then placed the mask on top of the glue.

We'll do our embellishing at school next week.



Great job Grade 2/3!





Gail

Maritime Landscapes

Time to add some colour back on the bulletin board.

These Maritime Landscapes are just the thing.










MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- check out reference material online, google Lunenburg harbour, etc.
- art boards
- green painter's tape
- rectangular painting paper
- disk tempera paint
- white acrylic paint
- light and dark green acrylic paint
- sponges cut in small pieces
- scraps of paper, or use stash of painted papers
- scissors, glue
- black paper
- black sharpie, white pencil crayon




PROCEDURE:

Tape your rectangular paper to your art board with painter's tape.

Draw in a horizon line in upper third of paper.  Draw a water line (where the ocean meets the land) in the bottom third.

Paint sky blue with disk tempera paint. Sponge on some clouds using white acrylic paint.

Paint in a nice green coastline with green disk tempera paint.

Paint in the water. Mix a nice blue green using disk tempera paint.

Using a sponge and light and dark green acrylic paint, sponge in some bushes on the coastline.

Set aside to dry.

Now I tend to collect any big scraps of painted paper from other projects.  I also paint extra paper using up paint that I have already set out.  This way I build a nice stash of painted papers. I store them in stacks by colour.

If you don't have a stash paint some scraps of paper in bright colours.  I use book pages, newspaper, recycled paper from the printer.

Set aside to dry.

Cut a number of rectangles and squares out of your painted paper.

Glue onto the coastline.  Add some low triangular roofs out of black paper.

Add boats to the harbour.

Using sharpie and white pencil crayon add windows to the buildings, details, waves to the ocean, masts to the boats, etc.

That's it.


What a colourful way to perk you up in the middle of winter.





Gail

Easy Canadian Olympic Project

Here is an easy Canadian Olympic project.  I got the idea from the logo for the Canadian Olympic Development program.


I'm currently making an Olympic file folder book with Grade 1 at my latest residency.  This will be on our back cover.












MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- good paper for painting, not necessarily wc but a nice heavy paper
- disk tempera paint
- contact paper, the re-positionable type, I get mine from Home Depot
- maple leaf template, type in maple leaf template under Google images and you will find tons
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

Resize your template so it works for your paper.  The ones I'm using for the file folder book are quite small.

Trace around template on the back side (paper side) of the contact paper.

Cut out.

Tape your paper down to an art board with green painter's tape.


Remove paper backing from contact paper and place your leaf in the middle of your paper.

Smooth down all the edges.

Paint bright colours radiating out from the maple leaf.  The contact paper resists the paint.




Set aside to dry.

Remove sticker.  If it comes off in one piece you can place it on some wax paper and use it over again.

Remove tape.


That's it.

Here are some of the Sochi skylines that Grade 3 did.




See you next time.

Gail

Clay Snowman

Here is a new project I just finished with Kindergarten.

Here are some of the results.












MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- clay, we fired ours in the kiln but you can also use air dry
- small cup of water
- rolling pin
- nail and wooden skewer
- piece of fabric or canvas to work on
- glaze, if using air dry use acrylic paint
- brown pipe cleaners
- glue

PROCEDURE:

Lay down your piece of fabric., it stops the clay from sticking to your work surface.

Pull off a piece of clay about the size of an orange.

Roll your clay out, about 1/2 inch thick.

Cut a small oval base with your nail.

Dip your finger in the water and smooth the edge.

Roll the first snowball for the large snowman.

Scratch the base where you want the snowball to go and the bottom of the snowball.  You can flatten it first by gently tapping it on the table.

Dip your finger in water and apply to the scratches.

Make a little indentation with your thumb in the first snowball.  This will give a place for the next snowball to sit.

Complete the first snowman.

Add a second smaller one.

Make some carrot noses.  You can add these with "scratch, scratch, water, water".  (my clay chant I teach the kids) Or you can pinch one out of the clay in the top ball.

Use the skewer to poke in the eyes.

Add some buttons and a smile.

Poke in holes for the arms.

Add some snowballs.  I had some snowflake and star cutters so we made a few imprints in the base.  Just push lightly as you don't want to go all the way thru the base.

Let the clay dry out.  For kiln firing about 2 weeks.

When dry glaze and fire again.

With air dry let the clay dry out at least a week.  Paint with acrylic paints.  Add a sealing coat of Duraclear.  Leave bottom of base (underneath) free of paint and sealer so it can continue to dry out if needed.

Finally glue in some brown pipe cleaners for the stick arms.  Fold the ends over so they don't poke anyone.


That's it.



See you next time.

Gail