The Chameleon video clip was so popular last week, we've used it to inspire our art again this week.
This time when we watched the clip we were paying particular attention to the basic shapes of the animal, the patterns of his skin, and his large eyes that can independently look in different directions at the same time.
We drew our chameleons on watercolour paper, then went over all our lines with black permanent markers.
Then we had great fun experimenting with watercolours, focusing on wet-on-wet paint application and the spectacular textural effects that happen when you sprinkle salt on the wet paint. We love the unpredictable movement of the colours as they flow and blend together, and it's fascinating to watch the painting change as the salt continues to soak up colour in unexpected patterns.
A wonderful project, inspired by a number of others including this great lesson at Deep Space Sparkle. Due to time restrictions we don't have quite the same depth of layering and texture, but we are thrilled with the results!
I watched this very cool video on You Tube (thanks to Elementary Art Fun and several others!) and knew that we could use it as inspiration for some great art.
Suitably inspired, we used oil pastel to make patterns on colored paper, before drawing and cutting out our chameleons and shapes to create our backgrounds. Kids had complete freedom to create their designs, and in creating their paper-cut backgrounds.
Although I really don't like using templates, on this occasion I did use a chameleon template that I made from a cereal box. With only 1.5 hours for the entire lesson there was no way we could fit everything in!
We used a pin to score a line down the chameleon's spine and leg joints to ensure a sharp fold, and secured him to the background using a dot (not a lot!) of glue on each leg.
(Thanks to Larissa at mmmcrafts for the pin idea - I've always used a scissor blade for scoring, and there are always a few who press too heavily and cut right through their page. The pin makes a perfect score line every time.)
Our glue routine has rapidly evolved since my discovery of Pinterest (still as addicted as I was 10 minutes after joining :))
Before Pinterest I dreaded projects that involved glue of any kind - keeping the bottles clean and functioning just wasn't worth the effort!
I tried the glue sponge, which I'm sure works great if you have your own room & storage space... but I have to carry everything with me to every lesson, so it was too bulky and heavy.
Then I discovered the little glue pot (8 for $2 from the Dollar Tree) that I had kids dip a matchstick in to pick up exactly the right amount of glue for just-the-right-size dots. Wonderful, but I STILL had to clean up those pots!
Even this had a solution, when I read a great Pinterest hint about dipping the glue bottle lids in oil to stop them clogging..... so I smeared some Vasaline inside each pot, and voila! the dried glue just peels away!
I'm happy :)
And WHY has it taken me so long to work it out????
UPDATE: Now I just use old milk bottle lids. One at the end of each table, shared between 3 kids. They stack and transport nicely into a small takeaway food container, 2 layers separated by a piece of cardboard cut to size from a cereal box. At the end of the week I throw them away - even easier, no messy containers to store and virtually no wastage!!
