Snowman at Night Portraits

Hi everyone. Hope you had a great holiday break. I'm back at it with a new residency.

First up Kindergarten snowman portraits.

For a kindergarten project I like to incorporate lots of tactile elements.
















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- substrate or base material, I'm using 12"x12" hardboard but you can use cardboard, canvas, or poster board
- blue acrylic paint, if you are not planning to seal this project you can use liquid tempera
- corrugated cardboard cut into a large sized circle and a medium one
- drywall filler
- loose snow glitter
- Crayola model magic in white
- snow fabric
- coloured cardstock in red, orange, brown, and black
- assorted buttons
- tacky glue
- fabric snowflakes or paper punched snowflakes
- small scrap of black felt
alternate hat option:
- scrapbook paper scraps
- small pompom

PROCEDURE:
This is a 2 session project, approximately 45 minutes each.

Like most of my sessions we work from the cleanest activity to the messiest.  This limits our hand washing until the very end saving time.

We start with the model magic.  Give each student a piece of model magic about the size of a large cherry.

I ask the kids to roll it between the palms of their hands to form a ball and then squish it flat to form a circle.

Each child is given a paper towel with their name on it.  Place the circle on the paper towel.

Next I hand out the cardboard circles.  For kindergarten I have pre cut these.     For higher grades I would have them cut it out themselves.



Put some drywall filler on a disposable plate and hand out to students.  I have them share.

While the drywall is still wet sprinkle on the snow glitter.  It will stick on the surface.



Set aside to dry.  I have the kids place it on that same paper towel that has their name on it.

Hand out the substrates.

I initially was only going to use 1 colour of blue but the class I taught before kindergarten was using 2 colours of blue so I just re-used the plates of paint. I must say the backgrounds turned out much more vibrant with 2 colours.

Paint the substrate.




That's the end of session 1.  Allow for some overnight drying time.
Session 2:

I stocked up on snow fabric on clearance after Christmas as January is full of snow projects!

Cut a length of snow fabric to fit at bottom of substrate.  With kinders I pre cut.

Easiest way to glue this on is to add glue to the bottom of your background and then place the snow fabric on top.

Now we glue on the 2 circles. If they have warped a bit you will need to use the glue gun. Adult use only.

Glue the model magic head on.

I ran some brown card stock thru the paper shredder. We used these strips to make the arms.

Time for the hat.  For my sample I did a top hat.  Cut a rectangle out of card stock.  My card stock is crimped with my paper crimper (what a great tool!)

Glue into place.

Add a strip of black felt for the brim of the hat.

Alternate hat:  I also offered scrapbook paper for the kids to make a toque and a white pompom.

Add some buttons.

Add some googly eyes, you could also make these out of paper. Cut a mouth out of red paper and a orange nose.

Add a moon for our 'Snowmen at Night' and a few snowflakes.

If you want to seal this project you can use Mod Podge, Duraclear, or your favourite shellac. Just avoid the snow fabric and felt brim.

That's it. I hope to have some pictures of the kinder work shortly.

Gail