Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Marbling Made Easy

This project is way fun and turns out soooo cooool! I did it with my 6th graders when teaching about color, but I think it could be done with younger grades as well. This could be done with any size paper, I decided to make mine small because I used small containers to create them in. We made 4 (1 using primary colors, 1 warm, 1 cool, and 1 complimentary) and then glued them all onto a black sheet of paper. Here is how to create this cool marbling effect:

1. Layer about 1 inch of Shaving Cream onto a paper dish (or trays) *I bought my shaving cream at the dollar store. They had huge cans for just $1!
2. Level it out with a piece of cardboard as a scraper
3. Use water based paint. I used the water colors. Paint directly on top of the shaving cream. Use different compositions like concentric circles, stripes, half moons, etc.
4. Then using the back of the brush or a pointed stick or tooth pick. Swirl the paint. Do not push it down deep into the shaving cream. The paint will stay on the top.
5. Cut paper small about 6"x4." Lay paper on top of the design and press down  (printing technique). Pull the paper off. The shaving cream will appear to be all smeared but wait.
6. Use the piece of Posterboard. to squeeze off the excess shaving cream. Like magic, the design stays on the paper. 
You can reuse the shaving cream until it gets drab. Just mix it in and paint again and again. 



Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Keith Haring Dance Party

 This week, the fifth graders were introduced to Keith Haring. They loved his style, and many even recognized it from today's pop culture. For this project, We used his simplified style for drawing people and his rhythmic motion lines. The students were instructed to create a dance party using Keith Haring figures -the guidelines were to include at least 5 people, make sure that none of the people were shorter than their tallest finger, and to fill the space between all of the people with motion lines and shapes -That way, even though there aren't many indicators about where these people are, we still know they are moving around a lot and showing plenty of motion:)