Chinese Dragons

In this workshop we celebrated Chinese New Year by making some fierce dragon masks. I began by handing out some photocopies of a dragon mask and some metallic markers. Everyone had to colour in two masks. The students spent lots of time on these. Once they had finished, I asked the carers to cut the eyes and nose out of one of the masks. I showed them how to make little zig-zags from scraps of paper which we glued onto the backs of the eyes and noses. These were then glued onto the other mask to make a goggly 3D effect. The mask was then glued onto a paper plate for strength. I gave out some strips of red and orange tissue so that students could make some flames to come out of the dragon's mouth and finally we made a spiky fringe from scraps of painted paper.

Papier Mache Toadstools

For today's workshop I wanted to do another autumnal theme but felt that we had done enough autumn leaf projects. I hit upon the idea of making a toadstool. I told my students that we were doing papier mache but in fact this is a cheat's version of papier mache that is more like decoupage. A paper bowl and paper cup were covered in the appropriate colours of tissue. The cup in particular needed a few layers of tissue because it had a pattern on it. Some students (and carers) tried to save time by gluing on enormous bits of tissue but they soon found that this doesn't work because air gets trapped underneath and it doesn't stick down properly. After the pieces were dried with the help of a hairdryer I helped them attach the two together using doubled-up masking tape which worked quite well. The finishing touch was some white painted spots.

Tissue Paper Trees

Thanks to Kristin at For the Love of Art for this great idea. The colourful trees are small squares of tissue glued onto card. I made the mistake of getting my students to use chalk pastels for the background and then, of course, found that the trees wouldn't stick. I solved the problem by quickly stapling them on.

Bonfire Night Collage

Remember, Remember the 5th of November!
In the UK we celebrate a foiled plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 with fireworks and bonfires on the 5th of November.
My students used paint and collage to capture the colour and glitter of the event.
We used some lovely deep blue card for the background. The fireworks were made by blowing watered down paint with straws and also by swirling the straw around in the paint to make patterns. The bonfires started with an oil pastel drawing to which they added scraps of tissue paper and sparkly sweet papers. The final touch was some glitter glue which was spread or dotted here and there on the fire.

Painted Paper Tree Frogs

This was a two part workshop which began with making painted paper according to the very useful instructions on Deep Space Sparkle. It's unusual for my students to spend a whole hour working with paint and they loved it. The resulting painted paper was really lovely.
The next session involved using templates to make the tree frogs. There was quite a lot of cutting out required which not many of my students are able to do but they were able to choose colours, draw round the templates (or hold them down while their carer drew round them), apply glue to the pieces and stick them down.
We made a nice background for the frog using tissue paper prints. It took a bit of experimenting before I found some non-colourfast tissue paper, but once I did, it was just a case of the students creating a very rough leaf-shape, sticking it down with water, then peeling the tissue off to reveal a delicate and beautiful printed leaf.
We finished the project by using strips of brown paper to make a frame.

Jim Dine Hearts

I've had this project in my 'workshop ideas' folder for a few months now after seeing it on For The Love of Art blog. I was saving it for a Valentines project but then I decided that there's no reason for love hearts to be seasonal and, besides, who knows what I'll be doing in 6 months time? I started the class by showing everyone this picture:

The bright colours really appealed to my students and they were immediately enthusiastic about the project. I handed out sheets of black paper and initially got them to choose one colour of pastel. After they had added some colour, I got them to swap pastels with their neighbours until they had used a few colours. I then went round everyone individually, folding their paper and drawing half a heart for them (or their carers) to cut out. Once these were done and put aside, I gave out larger sheets of yellow paper and small squares of coloured tissue and glue. I asked them to concentrate on gluing the squares around the outside of the paper because we would be sticking the heart in the middle. They all followed this instruction ok. I made sure everyone's squares were stuck down properly before they glued the heart into the centre. Some students almost spoiled their pictures at the last minute by starting to paint glue on top of their heart or by using gluey fingers to press it down - next time I would warn them in advance about that! They all seemed happy with their creations anyway.