Rizzi-Inspired Papier-Mache Vehicles!

In DragonWing Arts, our theme for the fall was "Let's Get Moving!", and I developed a brand-new papier-mache project, building a prototype to make sure it was going to work. Above is the that prototype.

I introduced my small class to the charming work of James Rizzi.  I don't always have internet access, so I purchased a Rizzi calendar and shared his work with my students through the images on the calendar.  We especially noted the goofy vehicles with passengers and drivers with big smiles, wide eyes, and lots of personality.  And birds, too!  We noted the black outlines on all the bright colors.  And the students set out to make their own happy goofy vehicles.

They began with an assortment of boxes and other odds and ends.  Students taped parts together to create the basic desired shape of their vehicle, (and tested them with CDs to see how they'd look with wheels).   

Then they were covered with a couple of coats of papier-mache.

Meanwhile, CDs were decorated with colored Sharpies to become happy wheels, and we determined wheel placement on the vehicles.  I marked the location of the centers of the wheels and used a drill to cut holes for axles (wooden dowels).

Students painted a coat of gesso on the dry papier-mache.  The bright white gesso makes paint colors show up more brightly, essential for the James Rizzi theme.

Then, the vehicles were painted with cheerful colors.  

When the paint dried, we used oil-based paint markers to add people in the windows, and to outline the people and the areas of color on the vehicles with black.  The wheels were assembled with a slice of pool noodle between two CDs.  The axle was inserted in the vehicle, with a wheel placed on the dowel on each side, and a bottle cap hubcap was glued on each end of the dowel, not attached to the wheel.  This meant the wheels could each turn independently.   You can see the wheel construction on these photos below of my prototype.  I still need to add my headlights!

We used various 'gems' as lights and other embellishments on the vehicles.  Here's the box of gems after the lid popped off while I was putting it away.  Oops....

Here's an adorable finished train car made by my youngest student, a 3rd grade boy.

And a funky race car made by a 4th grade girl.

The wackiest shaped vehicle was this, which was some sort of camper trailer contraption, made by a delightful 5th grade girl.  She missed one class out of our 7 classes, and tends to work slowly, so I'm glad she was able to get this project complete. With more time, she could have spent more time on her windows and people.

I wish we'd had more time for more details, but we did the best we could with the time we had. We had one emergency class cancellation, not a snow day, but a squirrel day!  Yes, we  had a squirrel invader making himself at home in our classroom, and making quite a mess.  Once he was trapped (and released far away, I hope) we were able to get back to class.  I'm pretty terrified of rodents so this was a traumatic incident!

I only had three students this fall; they are three of the nicest kids ever.  There was zero arguing or fighting, and they were so kind to each other.  They go to different schools and hadn't met before, but instantly formed friendships and by the end of the session, they often left class arm-in-arm and with hugs, and had exchanged digits and were planning play dates!  So the projects were successful, but there was this additional success as well!

By the way - this was, as I said, a very small class.  If you attempt this project with a larger class, there's one important adaptation I'd make.  I'd use a base box of the same size for each student, that then could be added to.  If the bottom footprint of each vehicle, whether a train, a taxi, a school bus, a fire engine, a taxi cab, a truck, or an airplane, was the same size, all the axles could be cut to the same size and save a LOT of trouble!! Otherwise, this project can be done pretty easily.  Have fun!

New Project: People in Motion

I love inventing new projects.  My DragonWing Art students (2 girls and one boy) just completed a couple of these first-time projects, one of which I'm sharing with you today!

The theme for our 7-week session was 'Let's Get Moving'.  For the project I'm sharing today, the theme was 'people in motion'.  Each student created their own movable template for a person, cutting out out body parts and assembling them all with brass fasteners so that the limbs could be arranged in various poses.  I thought about showing the students Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, but not knowing two of the children or their parents very well, I decided against it. The kids did a great job, nevertheless.

Once assembled, the templates were traced repeatedly performing a moving action, such as the bowling image below.  The outlines were traced over with a black Sharpie.

Then, class was postponed for a week because of an unexpected visitor in our classroom. I'm terrified of rodents, and was freaked out to see a squirrel standing on the table next to the drying rack.  Pest control was called, and after a few days the invader was trapped and released hopefully very far away. With my husband's help, the gap at the bottom of the classroom door was covered with metal stripping, and the building was better secured.  Nothing had been destroyed in the room but with the squirrel trapped in there, he'd made a big mess, with stuff knocked over on the floor and squirrel droppings here and there.  The custodian did a first cleanup but was afraid to move the art stuff.  So then I took everything out of the room and did a thorough cleaning, and put  it all back, getting rid of some useless stuff in the process.  Then the custodian did a final cleaning/disinfecting.  Hopefully no more rodents, ever!

Anyhow, once the classroom was ours again, and the templates were traced, the students had a choice of three ways to add color.  One way was to trace inside the outlines of the figures with markers, and then use wet paintbrushes to pull the color into the figures and let the colors blend, as being done by the boy below.

The girls used the same method to color their figures.

 For their backgrounds, the girls used a second process.  They colored with pastel chalks, and then dipped a finger into liquid starch and used the wet finger to blend  the chalk colors.  The starch helps to blend, and also to 'fix' the chalk.

 One of the girls had missed a class and never outlined her figures with Sharpie.  I think it added an ethereal look to her diver in front of a beautiful sunset (or is it a sunrise?).

Instead of using the chalk and starch, the boy chose to paint his background with tempera paints.

I only had three students in the fall session of my class; one 4th grade girl, and one 5th grade girl,,and a 3rd grade boy.  The two younger kids were first-timers in the class, and none of them had ever met each other before.  After a rather quiet first class, they suddenly all became a wonderful unit, treating each other so nicely, laughing and relaxing and complimenting each other on their work.  By the end of the session, the two girls had exchanged phone numbers to arrange play-dates.  I couldn't have had a nicer little group.

One more time, here's the transformation of the piece at the top of this post, from before and after the chalk color had been added. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Look for another one of the new projects (hint: its based on the 'Let's Get Moving' theme, and was created with papier-mache) in a blog post coming soon! 

Robot in Perspective - Fun with Tooling Foil!

 A couple of weeks ago, I posted a pic of this robot, on a white background (below), as part of a post HERE, along with a tutorial on using tooling foil to achieve relief.  The tutorial consists of a couple of videos.  I'm new to videos, so they are not fancy, but hopefully they are worth your time if you are new to this material, 36 gauge aluminum tooling foil.  (You can also get copper or brass tooling foil, but it is MUCH more expensive, so not so financially practical for classroom use.)

By the way, the small amount of added color was done with acrylic paint mixed with Mod Podge, after the black 'antiquing' was done with India ink and steel wool.

I knew I didn't want to simply glue him on the white board as shown above, but I was struggling to figure out what environment would be a good fit for him.  So I stuffed all his parts (head, antennas, neck, arms, shoulders, legs, and body - all together 11 pieces) in a baggie that evidently wasn't closed too well.  I brought the bag into my studio, where I promptly dropped it, spilling the pieces onto a canvas laying on the floor.  The canvas was painted with black gesso, and I had drawn lines on it with white chalk.  I saw the  robot pieces on the canvas, and an idea was born!!

I found a scrap piece of foam core, and I painted it with black gesso.  Then I used a ruler and a white colored pencil to draw a perspective room room.  I added a couple of accents of color, also with colored pencil.  And then I glued my robot into the room, using low temperature hot glue. 

I posted a pic of him on Facebook, and he's received a lot of love, and a lot of questions, so in case you are thinking about this as a possible project for your students, here's a few thoughts on how to make it work -

• Your students should each have a baggie or envelope (with their name on it) to store their pieces. It's up to you how many pieces to make.  Arms and legs could be separated to be jointed at the knee or elbows.  Elbows, knees, hips, etc, could all be separate pieces like my shoulders are.  Make sure all pieces are cut with rounded corners to prevent cuts.
• Because the pieces are small, keep the design of each piece simple.  
• If you are using white colored pencil, like me, to do a perspective drawing on a black surface, make sure it is erasable in case of errors.  I liked the texture of the gessoed surface, but that might not be practical for young students.  
• Of course the drawing doesn't need to be perspective.  That might be too challenging for some students.  How about a city?  A garden?  A mountain landscape? 
• I glued with low temp hot glue.  Keep in mind that it low temp hot glue dries immediately, so if you are using this, the pieces have to be instantly placed once glue is applied.  With the small pieces, I suggest holding them with tweezers, quickly applying the glue, and placing them as desired.
• I do NOT recommend high temp hot glue.  While it will also hold well, and you have place your pieces, you are gluing METAL, and it will get HOT!  Probably not a great idea for your students.
• Other ideas for adhering, if you don't want to use hot glue: E6000 glue should work well, and some tacky glues might also hold.  Look for one that specifically says it will hold metal or other non-porous surfaces.  While I love Elmer's Glue-All, it is best for porous surfaces, like paper, wood, glue, or fabric.  It won't hold the metal foil permanently.  You can also use double stick tapes or other double-sided sticky products.

One last thought - the idea of using multiple small  pieces of tooling foil to create this robot sparked many other ideas.  For example, what about making windows and doors, and adhering them to a drawing of a house.  Or perhaps making tooling foil bugs, and adhering them to a drawing of flowers.  Or parts of a machine, or wheels of a vehicle, or leaves of a tree, or little boats to put on a drawing of a lake.  The material offers so many possibilities, so many ideas!  In the photo above, the the face features were made with a much lighter weight foil, not as effective, I think.  The students who made them were 3rd graders.  Please let me know if you have any questions!!