6th Grade (Bubble Wrap) Dot Painting

If you want a sure way to motivate 6th graders, try using bubble wrap! This project started as an attempt to speed up the Aboriginal-inspired Art lesson I'd taught to my 6th graders the last 2 years. After learning about (Australian) Aboriginal artwork and culture, I'd always had the students draw a favorite animal in a sort of x-ray style and fill in the negative space with symbols and dots. The animals would turn out great, but the students would lose interest during the dot phase and we'd get some half-hearted attempts. This year, we tried using bubble wrap to create the dots! There's something funny about using a material as plastic as bubble wrap to learn about such an old Art form.

I've always been a fan of bubble wrap- it's super fun to print it for texture in mixed media artwork. I made myself a note after last year's lesson to try printing bubble wrap to create the dots in the background. I found some of the most beautiful dot paintings I'd ever seen on this website (seriously, go look NOW!) I think the students were just as impressed by the artwork as I am! With the addition of the new reference images, the rest of the lesson introduction was the same. My original plan was to spend one class printing bubble wrap backgrounds, and the next two adding animals and/or symbols. You'll see if you read on that the lesson evolved as the students' needs and interests came into play.

I have no trouble painting and printing the bubble wrap fast enough. The average student, however, does. We discovered that using a damp sponge to moisten the paper prior to printing yielded better results. Most students were much more intrigued by the dots than by the animals so in the second class period, I gave them a choice. The students could either try the dot painting again, or they could go ahead and add an animal and symbols to their first painting. I had intended for the students to draw, cut, and glue their animals and symbols, but after one student tried painting them directly on top of the dots, everybody really liked that technique!

 I stressed that there was to be ABSOLUTELY NO POPPING OF THE BUBBLE WRAP! And we really didn't have a problem with it. I had purchased a roll of bubble wrap that could be torn into sheets. Recycled would have been great, but this way I was sure to have sheets big enough. The same bubble wrap sheets were washed and reused in each class. By the end of the 2nd class period, after being used about 10 times, the bubble wrap is still in good enough shape to use.

 Here's a 6th grade student showing how to wash the bubble wrap. We gently rubbed the sheet together then laid it bubble side down on sections of newspaper to dry. If there were a way to hang the sheets, they would probably dry faster.

White Rabbit

This student is a cancer survivor and wanted to make a ribbon

This student traced her hand with paint after we learned that Aboriginal artists sometimes used their arms and hands as stencils.

This was made by a student who finished early.

6th Grade Aboriginal-Inspired Artwork

So you might be thinking "Wait a minute, Aboriginal Art is from Australia and I don't think elephants are native to that country!" And you would be right.  I wanted this to be a multicultural lesson and in order for it to truly be MULTIcultural, it can't be all about one culture.  (Thank you, Dr.Grove!) So, we learned about Aboriginal Art and culture and used that for inspiration to create artwork featuring THEIR favorite animal that may or may not be Australian.   This project was voted the favorite of last year's 6th grade students so it was a repeat.

Introduction: I had prints of Aboriginal artwork on the tables when students entered the room.* I asked the students to look at the artwork and make an educated guess as to where the artists lived.  After several guesses, someone said Australia so I went into my introduction of Aboriginal people and artwork.  We also covered the awesome vocabulary word of "indigenous" and split Aboriginal into Ab-ORIGINAL to help the students remember.  To make it hit home, we discussed how Native Americans are indigenous to the United States.  I won't type a script of my presentation (I have enough trouble keeping things brief) but I will tell you that most of my information came from http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/index.php.

 After that, we went through the Elements of Art starting with the elements the students thought were most important in the artwork we looked at.  We don't have the time to go so deep in discussion with every lesson but I think it's really good to do at least once in a while!  I introduced the project and modeled drawing an animal in a style inspired by Aboriginal artwork.

This is the process we used for the paintings:

1. Pick an animal to work on- your favorite animal or just on you want draw.  If you don't have an idea, consider a fish, snake, or turtle.
2. Figure out the best angle to draw the animal from- the simplest view that still gives enough information to identify the animal.
3. Draw a simplified/stylized outline of your animal on your paper. (We used a pack of multicultural construction paper.)
4. Use lines and shapes similar to those in the Aboriginal artwork to divide the body of your animal into sections.
5. Include at least three symbols somewhere in your design.  This could be in the negative space around the animal or in the body.  They could be traditional symbols from Aboriginal artwork or made up.  The symbols could go together to tell a story or just be symbols that you like the design of. **
6. Trace the lines and shapes with a "skinny" sharpie.
7. Use tempera paint to fill in the sections of the body and symbols with a solid color- red, yellow blue, black, or white.  (We discussed limited color palettes and reviewed primary and neutral colors.  I was mean and did not let them mix colors this time.)
8. Use the end of your paintbrush to apply dots of paint to create designs in the negative space around the animal.  I recommended patches of one color over the "confetti" effect.  I also suggested a border  of one solid color to outline the animal and moving around the paper as they worked so if they ran out of time, it would still be balanced.

**One of my students did something really cool with his artwork.  He drew a dog for his animal and created symbols that meant he was the guardian of the home.

Last year this was a two (40-minute) class period project.  I gave the students three class periods and still had lots not totally finish.  Some came in during their lunch recess to work on it.  I'm convinced that some students just would not finish even if I gave them ANOTHER class.  The funniest thing to me about this project was my students who are known as being the "good" artists kind of freaked out!  It was almost like if they couldn't draw it realistically, they didn't want to try.  

Finished paintings: