Talking about flowers reminds me of another lesson that students love.
Ahead of time, I cut a stack of 3"x4" (or so) pieces of manila paper or old
construction paper that has faded. And I also cut some pretty construction
paper in larger squares...maybe about 6" x 6"...and they also need a sheet
of 12"x18" white drawing paper...and some containers of tempera in flower
colors plus scissors and glue.
First, they fold the 6x6 square in half and cut out a flower pot (or larger
rectangular pieces for taller vases) and then glue on the bottom of the
white paper.
Then take the small pieces of manila paper, have them fold in half, then
open up and drop white and another color of tempera (sometimes they use
white, yellow and another color) onto the paper. Press together and then
open and press on the white paper for the flowers themselves. When they
finish doing their bouquet of flowers, they can then add leaves, stems, etc.
Some even painted in a butterfly.
Carolyn Roberts
> One that's a lot of fun...is to drop ink on white paper and then blow with
a
> straw to spread out. When dry, paint in between the ink lines with
> watercolors, blending the colors in each section. >>
> I have students do a variation of this. They blow the ink across a long
> piece of paper approx. 10" x 20" (I have them use slick paper like
> finger-paint paper as the ink flows very easily.) We examine various
> "branch" type flowers such as forsythia, and pussy willow. Then they add
to
> the branches by adding yellow forsythia flowers with paint OR they press
> their finger in gray paint and make prints up the ink branches to create
> pussy willow buds on the long the ink branches. The final process is
> creating some sort of vase or base with paint for the ink pictures. Then
> they add dowels to top and bottom of long paper to create a scroll that
looks
> similar to Asian style scrolls.
