Spooky silhouettes on hand dyed paper - grade 5/6

This is a project I did last year that has actually become one of my most popular projects on this blog. I figured I would do it again towards the end of the year, as I did last year, but then I had the idea of using the same technique but with spooky Halloween silhouettes.

I gave my students about 20 minutes in the computer lab, where they had to compile together their ideas for their silhouette. Once we got back to class, they drew their ideas onto black paper. The one rule here was that they could not trace what they found online - even if they found the perfect image ready to go, they still had to draw it, rather than tracing it.

We used the exact same technique as last time to dye the paper, which I outlined in my last post. The only difference is that this time, they added sparkles after chalk pastel, to look like twinkly stars in the sky. These don't show up too much in the pictures, but they look great in person! After about an hour and a half, the papers were dry enough to glue the silhouettes onto. Then we mounted them onto black paper, and they were done!

Let me know if you try this technique and if you have any luck with it. We love it over in my class!

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?