Book Making-Accordian folded pages and gesso book covers

I mixed gesso with some acrylic paint. I put a spoonful of the stuff on each rectangle of chipboard. The students then used plastic utensils to make designs and textures in the gesso.

We let those dry and came back to them a week later. The students painted over the top with acrylic paint so it would have a more vibrant color. After they dried again we sprayed them with Turtle Wax (an experiment, I don't know how well it will actually last). While they were drying we glued paper together and folded them accordian style to glue into the books. We turned the book covers over and hot glued a ribbon across the backs of both covers. Then we used Tacky glue to glue the pages onto the covers.

These books can be flipped through like a standard book, or you can open the covers all the way until they are facing back to back. This makes a nice way to display the pictures that are glued inside.

Ceramic Wind Chimes

It took three classes to make these wind chimes, and I was so impressed by all the great ideas I saw. The first day we rolled out the clay and cut our pieces. They had to make one big shape and 10 small shapes to hang from the big shape. We used a straw to poke holes.

Then I fired the pieces and we glazed them the next class.

The last day we tied all the pieces on with heavy duty fishing line. This took a long time and a lot of finger coordination. They look fantastic!

Finished Birch Tree Landscapes

Our next step was to use a Sharpie to add details. I had pictures of birch trees for them to look at and we talked about cross-contour lines to make the trees look round.  

Watercolor Landscapes-Birch Trees

We were working with watercolors during this lesson. We used blue masking tape and masked off the areas we wanted for white birch trees. Then we painted our backgrounds right over the top of the tape. We let them dry until the next week.