Faux Stained Glass Project

Thank you Uncle Matt.  His advertising firm had some leftover glass that he donated to my art class.  What can we do with it?  Faux Stained Glass!

This semester I have 65 8th grade students.  We have enough glass for everyone to get about  7x9 or slightly bigger.  

This one-off project was inspired by this blog post, check her work out.  

Here is the glass cutting.  pretty easy!

Once we have enough, each student gets one, cleans off the glass shards, and we need to protect those edges.  For real stained glass, the outside is sealed with a metal channel called "came".  We have none, so I used the paper cutter to cut 1/2 in strips of metal that we would use for tooling.  I had a roll of 40 pound copper and bronze metal foil. 

the students bent it around the glass, and I used hot glue to attach the metal to the glass.  Also, I used hot glue to attach hemp cord hangers to the back side.

The process is simple.  Glue + acrylic paint = faux stained glass.

The "lead" lines are created using black acrylic/glue mix in old glue bottles.  Students make a design in their sketchbook and then set the glass on top.  Trace using the glue.  They had to be careful not to include too much detail for such a small project.  

This had to dry for a day before starting with color.

The color was made by using regular glue.  Squeeze out about a quarter size drop of glue, add a small amount of paint, mix and paint in.

the results are pretty astounding!

These dry for another day, and finish with some sharpie where the paint/glue mix went over the "leading"  

These were done just in time for some kids to take home as Valentine's Day gifts!

Henri Matisse Inspired Art

New way to make sketchbooks

Ever make a 500 page sketchbook? I made one in 5 minutes today! (actually, I made like, 6). Easy! I took a ream of paper, partially opened it, clamped down near the end using some chunks of 2 x4 and some clamps. Then I covered the end with hot glue, and used a Popsicle stick to smear , and smooth it out. Making sure I had full coverage to the ends, I unclamped the paper and voila! Students will get their smaller, 30 page sketchbook paper pad by ripping out their chunk and passing the remainder to a neighbor. Super sweet! By the way, did this while waiting for our open house... Look how many people we had outside waiting!

Also, the sketchbook covers have never been better. This year: wallpaper. It's vinyl, cloth and prepasted. All you do is add water, lay down the covers, wrap around, glue down some end sheets and dry. Hot glue the 30 page pad after its dry! Super!

Yeti!

Another semester, another group of 7th and 8th graders.  We are starting this semester with papercraft.  About 10 out of 150 had ever even heard of papercraft!  I downloaded this YETI from http://www.curiositygroup.com/, a papercraft website.  They produce a new calendar project for every month!  Lets practice cutting, color, pasting, and following directions!  Plus, a fun poem about yetis....

"There once was a cat-loving Yeti,

Whose favorite dish was spaghetti,

'Til he went to Nantucket,

And looked in a bucket

And saw ice cream topped with confetti."

here is a link to the PDF, if you want to try it on your own!

http://curiositygroup.com/calendarofthemonth/

Negative is not always bad...

September 13-16 Negative Space! Negative space is the area around the main design. This week we explored relationships between positive and negative shapes, starting with drawings of the space around a chair. Then we switched to paper cutout designs. Check out some of the artwork.
Click here for the lesson.