Recycled Art Challenge (Continued)

In honor of Earth Day, my 2nd and 3rd grade students participated in a "Recycled Art Challenge" where they had 2 class periods and a ton of different "recycled" materials with which to make something. The project could be 2D or 3D, but most went 3D. We saw lots of collaboration and creativity. I already shared a few photos a few weeks ago (see here) but I wanted to share some more photos of the students' art as well as a list of their favorite materials (at the bottom of this post).

Above we have a pop monster and a collaborative Minnie and Mickey Mouse project. The pop monster (my term) was made of a pop can, 6 bottle caps, a bunch of pop tabs, curling ribbon, tissue paper, and cardboard. Mickey and Minnie were made by two friends. One student made each figure but they worked to make their sculptures match. They used paper towel tubes for the bodies and juice can lids (tons were donated) for the heads. The idea came to them after seeing the red and white polka dotted wrapping paper scraps I brought in. The bow was made from tissue paper and Mickey's shorts were made from scrap paper in the collage center.

There were probably 6 students working on the landscape theme. Some worked with partners and a couple worked individually. They used old file folders as a base and tissue paper, ribbon, can lids, and watercolor wells for the flowers and trees. The nest in the tree on the left was made from leftover shredded newspaper from the Bird Nest lesson I taught 4 years ago. Yes, that's a long time to keep shredded paper, but I bet some of you have held on to random supplies longer than that! :)

Here we have a textured collage and an alligator or crocodile, whichever does not show its teeth with a closed mouth. The alligator/crocodile was made from egg cartons, cardboard, tissue paper, and bottle caps.

 An art creature and glass of lemonade... The art creature has colored pencil stub legs and watercolor well eyes. The lemonade gets color from tissue paper.

One of my ASD students is kind of obsessed with computers. He was always asking if I had any computer magazines for collages and wanted to spend any time he could get away with talking about computers. I was not surprised when he whipped this laptop out for his project. He used a piece of drawing paper for the base, bubble wrap for the keyboard, and some foam packing sheets for the screen. He used cereal boxes to make the frame and buttons.

 Several students wanted to make rooms. The top left shows a folded paper base with magazine cut out pop-ups. The top right is a bathroom. I like the sink the best. He found one of those flattened blue marbles (my elementary school counselor called them dragon tears) for water and used watercolor wells for all the basins after constructing the walls from cardboard.

 Here's another room. The student would have added more details if she hadn't run out of time.

 I should have taken a photo of this project from another angle. She spent a lot of time wrapping the different parts in tissue paper. The stem is a paper towel tube and the leaf is cut cardboard.

 There were lots of "machine" models made. Lots of cars, tanks, cannons, etc. The student who made the above tank figured out how to make it "shoot" marker caps. When he pushes a new cap through, the front cap shoots out!

Here are my students' Top 10 Favorite Materials for the Recycled Art Challenge

1. Cardboard tubes (paper towel and toilet paper)
2. Egg cartons
3. Can lids (with smooth edges, of course)
4. Bottle caps
5. Pop tabs
6. Tissue paper (saved from holidays and birthdays)
7. Cardboard (saved from boxes)
8. Bubble wrap (saved from shipments)
9. Play-doh lids
10. Parts from old watercolor trays- the wells and the "ladders"

Another favorite material that was not exactly recycled, but was leftover from some project and donated, was burlap! We had it in blue, green, yellow, and red. It was really fun for them. I wish I would have thought to bring more fabric scraps from home.

Eco Art

Last April the Art Walk in my hometown fell the same week as Earth Day. One of our Art Walk people decided to put out a call for Eco Art- Art made by recycling or repurposing. I love having an "assignment" and got a few ideas in my head right away.

The first two ideas were ducks! I have an interest in ducks as you may have noticed if you've been hanging around this old blog very long. I decided to make a torn magazine paper collage of a mallard based off a photo I took over spring break. It went pretty smoothly. I sketched the basic outline and proceeded to find colors to tear, arrange, and glue to the paper. I enjoyed trying out that style of collage. The mallard collage was donated for a fundraiser to help with future art walks. 

For my next duck, I focused on a drake wood duck coming out of the water. I started off using the same approach as the mallard- I sketched, I tore, I glued. I tried painting the background of my cardboard panel. It wasn't good. It was too flat. I had to make the hard decision and come up with a new plan. I like the look of corrugated cardboard and figured since the theme was "eco" art, there was no reason to try to hide the material. I used an exacto knife to cut around the duck and then started to peel the top layer of paper off. After I had removed the top layer, I painted over the corrugation to get my finished piece. The hardest part of this project was actually finding magazine papers to match the colors close enough. Wood ducks have a LOT of different colors and those colors aren't always easy to find.

The last project I created for the eco art challenge was a simple gouache painting on a small cereal box covered with gouache. I used Elmer's Art Paste for the papier mache process. I used to go with liquid starch but after reading about how the art paste goes a long way and will last quite a while I decided to give it a try. I still have a whole bunch in a sealed gallon ice cream carton waiting for my next project. After I had covered a few boxes with newspaper, I let them dry and then gave them a coat of white paint. On this box I decided to paint a picture inspired by a barn that I see on my drive to school. Of course I always end up making my colors brighter than they are in real life. I hadn't used gouache since college but I think I'll pull out those little tubes more often. I love how quickly it dries! This little painting sold after the art walk.

I hope you enjoyed this little peak at some of my artwork. Recycling has become a priority to me since becoming a parent and doing it through art is a fun solution!