Thursday, March 8, 2012

Hand dyed paper with silhouettes - grade 5/6

 
Well, here it is. I present to you my absolute favorite art project ever for junior grade students. I saw the idea just yesterday morning here, and decided that I must do it immediately. Luckily, my students had earned a privilege day (where they got to do fun activities!) so we decided to spend the day doing... ART!

Last night, I asked students to do a google search and find some ideas for silhouettes that they would like to do. We talked about what would make a good silhouette – animals, nature, etc., and we talked about how their choice in colors would change the mood of their picture. Students had to decide what colors they would use to dye their paper. 

 
Here’s a simplified explanation of the instructions. In a shallow basin of water, students use a popsicle stick to scrape away at pieces of chalk pastel. I tried normal chalk, but found that chalk pastels gave richer color. They must shave colors into the basin until a layer of color forms on top, where almost no water is visible. Then, they lay the paper flat on top of the water for about 5 seconds, and carefully remove it. The paper will definitely start to curl, so they should have somewhere that they can put it down on quickly (we used placemats.) anywhere where the color didn’t take properly, students shaved some extra chalk shavings onto it, which blended well since the paper was still wet. This afternoon, they drew their silhouette shapes, cut them out, and glued them on!


This project was incredibly easy, and is definitely the best project I’ve done so far this year. The kids loved it, everyone had success, and I just feel like it was a great way to use their earned day.

Only one more day until our one week of March break! I will be going somewhere fun, far, and frozen (well, not that frozen, but the first thing kids think when they hear it is IT’S COLD!) Any guesses?

17 comments:

  1. Wow! Those are gorgeous! I just forwarded this idea to the 6th Grade teacher at my school, since my Kindergarteners obviously would be a bit young for this. Thanks for all the ideas you post. As a no-art-background teacher, I really appreciate it.

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    1. Thank you!! You know, these could be modified for kindergarten. You could do the color shaving yourself (have them chose the colors) and then help them lay the paper in. It would be even better if you had the kids pre cut the paper into shapes, then dye it. Then glue it onto a colored paper and voila! They'd probably love watching the paper turn a different color!

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  2. These are really beautiful! What a great idea! Now I have to try making a decorated background Mon during my prep! Love it! :)

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  3. I did not see a pinterest pin so I was wondering if you would give permission to pin this to my board on pinterest. Thanks

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  4. Love that! And will do it... :)
    lg lici

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  5. Does it matter what kind of paper you use?

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    1. I'd use a drawing paper - the weight is a bit better than computer paper and it doesn't ball up the same, but it's still cheap enough to work for a whole classroom/.

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    2. Hi!
      I've been doing this project for years and the kids really do think its magic! I always try to add some Core with my Art lessons so I'd always talked about how the Colonists decorated the pages just inside their books, etc. with 'marbled' paper. To marble the chalk on top of the water, simply take a plastic fork and gently swirl the colors being careful not to 'muddy' the colors too much. It's really impressive!

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  6. Thank you!! We tried it with watercolor paper (just a cheaper classroom quality) and it works great - my students are having so much fun with this project!!!

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  7. How do you think this would work with a canvas? I have alot of them and thought this would be a cool way to use one.

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    1. Katie,
      Did you ever find an answer to your inquiry?

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  8. great project i too will teach my students

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  9. I just did this with my students using water colour paper and regular chalk, it worked GREAT! Plus it was a great way to use up old chalk that we no longer need now that we only have whiteboards and smartboards.

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  10. Many thanks for this amazing post!

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  11. This is great! I'd like to use this as an Indigenous art project culminating activity. Do you mind if I put the link into a lesson plan that I'm submitting to my university?

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