Art Tissue + India

Over the summer I saw a Facebook post from Pacon looking for bloggers to test out some products. I answered and was delighted to receive Spectra® Bleeding Art Tissue, Art1st® Multi-Media Paper, and a Classroom Keepers® Activity Tray. I found the paper they sent to be pretty sturdy and it held up well to the water used with the bleeding tissue paper. When we ran out of the multi-media paper and had to switch to the sulphite drawing paper in the cabinet, it tended to curl up a lot more with the tissue process. While I put the Activity Tray together super easily, I keep changing my mind about what to use it for so in the words of Forest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that" (for now).

Spectra® Bleeding Art Tissue creates really cool color effects.

Starting points for India projects

Each grade learned about India and created an art project inspired by the culture in the first 9 weeks. I had used the Spectra® Bleeding Art Tissue to test out an idea for 4th-6th grade, drawing an elephant with crayon and applying the art tissue over the top, creating a resist. Most of the students who chose to try a similar idea wanted to be much more detailed with their patterns, so they planned in pencil, and traced with sharpie instead. Elephants were a popular choice, but not the only option for students. I had several starting points and students could branch out and connect ideas to come up with their own direction. As long as they could explain how their art related to something they learned about India, it was good with me! 

I did not assign the students to learn about a particular element or principle, but check out how this student took the idea of a peacock, the national bird of India, and created patterns!

This 6th grade student told me she "messed up" because the shapes from the tissue on the right were not as clear as on the left. I thought it was beautiful and do not think she messed up at all!

"Painting" with the tissue over a drawing of an Indian animal was by far the most popular choice. I had the students use a brush to apply water to their paper, set the tissue on one piece at a time, and use the brush to press it onto the paper.

Sometimes the color seeps in irregularly but I like the effect.

The tissue can be applied in a patchwork kind of design with squares and mixed up colors, or it can be applied strategically, matching colors to the field you are coloring in, such as blue tissue on water. Since most students wanted mixed up colors, I took a stack of assorted art tissue to the paper cutter, chopped it into 1.5 inch strips, then chopped the strips the other direction to create a bunch of mostly equally sized squares. Most students removed the tissue when dry as the color seeped into the paper, but you can also use watered down glue or mod podge to keep the tissue on the paper, adding texture and intensifying the color. 

Many students also used the tissue over a drawing of their hand with mehndi designs or as a background. 

The students and I especially loved the Spectra® Bleeding Art Tissue and I already ordered some more so the primary kids can try it out. I know they'll enjoy it just as much. I haven't checked other places, but it's pretty affordable from Sax, which is where I order all of my school supplies.

Check out Pacon on Facebook  and at www.Pacon.com!

1st Grade Balloons

It may not jump right out and grab you as such, but this was my 1st grade Kansas Day lesson! We learned that Kansas is the nation's leading producer of helium. In the book we read, there were paintings of beautiful passenger balloons, which were the inspiration. 

I had the project all planned out thinking of them as "hot air balloons"... until I realized that hot air balloons float because of the heat, not because of helium. I double checked the pictures in the book, and after doing a little research, found that helium is still sometimes used in passenger balloons, just like hot air.  When introducing the lesson, we talked about what makes balloons float. Some of the 1st graders knew that helium makes party balloons float, but none of them could guess that helium comes out of the ground. (Here's an interesting article about helium) I showed pictures of hot air balloons, because as far as I can tell passenger balloons pretty much look the same, and we discussed how both hot air and helium float because they are lighter than regular air.

The rest of the first class period was spent painting the sky for the background. I don't know about your students, but mine are always asking me how to make a sunset. We reviewed warm colors on the color wheel, then I introduced the concept of 

Analogous colors are "neighbors". I told the students that colors close to each other on the color wheel blend well together. Each table had yellow, orange, red, and purple paint. We applied the paint on 9x12 inch paper in that order. I did have the students follow along with me on this part to make sure they got their colors in the right order. Not because I wanted little clones, because I wanted them to see how the colors blended and understand analogous. Since we started with yellow, the lightest color of the day, I just asked the students to try to use all the paint on their brush before moving on to the next color. They didn't need to rinse until before they applied purple. After purple, the brushes were rinsed again so they could go back and dab on clouds with yellow paint.

In the 2nd class period, the students "painted" with tissue paper on a 6x9 inch piece of paper. I tested brushing water over the bleeding tissue paper then removing it, but I prefer the more saturated colors from sealing the tissue pieces to the paper with watered down glue. I let the students use whatever tissue colors they wanted, but we did talk about how warm colors would blend in more and cool colors would stand out from the background. I had cut stacks of tissue paper into 1 inch (ish) squares and separated them into tubs by warm and cool. This took quite a bit of upkeep as by the end of almost every one of my 7 first grade classes, the extras were all thrown together instead of kept separate. I got some early finishers to help sort the colors again but it was still kind of a big mess. The only bad part about cutting the tissue with the paper cutter like I did, is that the layers tend to stick together. It is really important to only apply one layer at a time in order to get a good seal and a smooth surface on the paper.

The 3rd class was spent assembling everything. We looked at pictures of passenger balloons and the students described the shape. I described the shape as an ellipse that tapers but a student said "like a lightbulb" and that was a better example. The balloon shape was drawn on the back of the fused tissue paper sheet and then cut out. (I had the students put the scraps in a box, these papers were too cool and colorful to throw away!) I showed how lines could be used to show sections on the balloons and the students added lines to theirs with black crayon. At the end of the 2nd class, students used stamps (made from wrapping yarn around cardboard pieces) to add texture with brown paint to tan tagboard. The textured paper was cut into smaller shapes for the basket. I asked the students to count to 19, or some other random number, when gluing their papers to make sure they stuck. More lines were added to hang the baskets from the balloons and if there was any time left, the students drew passengers.

 Look below for more examples or check out our Artsonia gallery!

This student mixed warm and cool.

Cool colors really make this balloon stand out!

A couple classes had to use oil pastels instead of tissue paper to finish in 2 classes instead of 3.

Warm colors make this balloon blend in more. 

I'm really working with this student on taking his time. He gets really excited and could complete any project in about 2 minutes if his Para and I weren't trying to slow him down. I do love the energy in his brush strokes here.