K – 6 Art

Sixth grade just finished their sparkling foil name art projects.

Materials:

• cardboard
• yarn
• scissors
• white glue (such as Elmer’s)
• foil (I love Pre cut foil sheets >)
• Sharpies or other permanent marker, black and colored
• spray glue
• small squares of felt
• q-tips
• pencil/erasers

Students write their names in glue and yarn.

Next they added decorative glue/yarn lines. I sprayed the plates with spray glue and slapped on a piece of pre-cut foil.

Students carefully polished the foil with felt squares. This helps the foil adhere to the cardboard and smooths the foil. A q-tip is good for polishing tight areas. Finally, they got to the best part: coloring in with jewel-tone colored Sharpies. Black sharpie looks good too! Remind students to avoid coloring the raised yarn lines.

Caroline

;

Erika

Trey

This project was inspired by this post at Fine Lines and this post at We Heart Art.

This week the fifth graders continued work on their spectacular sport trophies. The wire and foil figures are now posed and wrapped with plaster wrap. Almost all have been stapled to wooden bases. Our fifth graders have experience working with plaster (see this post and this post) so almost all finished wrapping the figures during our 40 minute class.

Volleyball

Don’t you love the poses and accessories?

Skier with popsicle stick skis and bamboo skewer poles.

Here’s a ‘wrap up’ (get it?) of all the steps so far:

wire armature made from two pieces of 18 inch pre-cut floral wire

Wrap wire with foil, trim arms

Wrap with plaster wrap and mount

UPDATE: see the finished Olympic trophies in this post!

NOTE: I used three basic supplies for these sport sculptures:

• Plaster wrap
• Pre-cut floral wire (aka stem wire)
• Pre-cut aluminum foil

Pacon 52720 Plast’r Craft Plaster Impregnated Gauze Strips, 20 lbs.

 18″ Pre-Cut Stem (Floral) wire 20 Gauge Bright Silver

(similar product available at Michaels and Wal-Mart craft department)

Pre-cut Aluminum Foil Popup Sheets

(similar product available at Costco and Smart & Final)

Its January.  That means you want to get more organized, right? Here are a few products that make my art room life a little (or a lot!) easier.

Elmer’s triple-size glue sticks. Glue sticks – so much to love, so much to hate. Hate #1: the standard size sticks (.21 oz. each) run out so quickly! Solution: big fat glue sticks.

1. 

   Elmer’s glue sticks: .77 oz. vs. .21 oz.

   These are more expensive that regular sticks, but they are over 3x larger. Available in 12 packs of white and Goes on Purple/Dries Clear.
   at office supply stores and Amazon (and maybe even your school district’s supplier!).

3M Command removable hooks

Do you have laminate cabinets? Or some other vertical surface deemed off-limits to drilling/nailing by school officials? Try 3M Command removable hooks. These hooks have been in use for 3 years and none have fallen off.

2 oz. ‘salsa’ cups and lids

Glaze in 2 oz. 'salsa' cups

You will find many uses for these: glaze, leftover paint, glue, slip….made by Dixie and available at Costco , Smart & Final and Amazon (lids may be sold separately).

Pre-Cut Foil

Friends don’t let friends waste time cutting foil. Pre-cut foil comes in a pop-up box allowing you to distribute it as if it were Kleenex. Small boxes of 25 sheets are often (but not always) available at Dollar Tree and 99 Cents Only. 500 sheet boxes of Foil Popup Sheets are available at Amazon. Costco has its own brand in 500 sheet boxes. I use pre-cut foil for this sculpture project and this name art project.

I read art room blogs for two years before starting my own….your organizational tips have been so helpful to me!!!  Is there another tip you’d like to share? Leave a comment.

Happy January!

The 5th grade is just about finished with the annual mask project.  I wrote about it earlier in this post.

Some students used sculpted foil under the plaster.  Wow! The effect is fabulous and rock hard.

This mask uses foil as an armature. Student also added wire antennae.

After completing the sculpture, we sealed the masks with matte medium and painted them with tempera.

Here are some more 5th grade masks:

Pineapple 'hair' made of sculpted foil covered in plaster wrap.

Student separated strands of roving yarn to make fur.

Elmer's Glue works great for adding yarn hair.

Glitter looks great on this fish.

Snowman's hat is made from a yogurt cup.

Angry birds are popular this year. Beak and antenna made of foil and plaster wrap.

Can’t wait till all 75 are up on the wall….

Update: Do you love plaster sculpture? New project now online! Click here and here for our plaster sport trophy posts.

The sixth grade recently finished their foil name art reliefs. This project was a big hit!  Several students said it was their favorite project ever.

You can download my foil relief powerpoint here.

We started by layering two colors of light cardboard to create a name art collage. Students could use their name, initials, or nickname.

We then covered the cardboard in foil. Next, we covered the foil completely with black permanent marker.

Finally we rubbed off the marker with steel wool to create an attractive patina.

All the students loved this project!  They felt the resulting patina looked like old metal. Here are some completed examples: