Chihuly 3D activities

Earlier I posted the 2D examples from our Dale Chihuly unit- here are some of our wonderful, fun, creative examples of 3D art.  Some of these lessons will look familar and some are uniquely mine.  Have fun looking around!

Dura-lar Macchias:  This lesson is from Blick  (I also saw it on a lot of other blogs)  Here's a good link for materials and a video demo: http://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/classroom-chihuly/

I did this with 2nd and 3rd graders.  It took one 60 minute art class.  To make the paint I just mixed some acrylic gel medium in with my regular acrylics.  This made the paint shiny and see through adding to the 'glass appearance'.  I had a hard time spending the money on special 'glass paint' so if you are in a bind, this was a cheap alternative.

Waterbottle chandeliers:  http://pinterest.com/tdharlow/artsy-chihuly/  There are tons of blogs that have different sculpture ideas for this activity, as well as many pins on Pinterest.

For our sculptures we created 1 chandelier per 4th grade class.  One warm colors, one cool and one rainbow colors.  Students cut off the bottoms of their bottles first, then either straight or spiral cut up to the top of the bottle.  They colored with sharpie markers and we melted the bottles in our toaster oven.  I used wire to string all the tops together and hung from the ceiling.

They attracted a lot of attention in our school!  For a 1 class period project (60 mins)- this was a great one!!!

Coffee Filter Macchias:  These again have been seen on many different blogs and website.  You take a coffee filter, have the students cut an organic edge and trace the edge with sharpie.  Color with water soluble markers and spray with spray starch.  We created a 'spray station' with trays and yogurt cups to drap our filters over while they were sprayed. 

After they were dry you could display them in a few different ways.  For 1st grade we glued them to scrap tag board.  For Kindergarten I glued them all onto a piece of roll paper to display.  I saw this on someone's blog, but unfortunetly I can't remember which.  If it was yours please let me know and I'll create a link!

CLAY LESSONS! 

These lessons are of my own creation.  The timing of the unit was perfect for getting our first major ceramics work in (K-3) and the subject of glass art tied in really well.  We could discuss how the clay, much like glass, was soft and workable and then after firing it becomes very hard.

Pinch pot Ikebanas:  These pinch pots were created by K-1st grade.  We watercolored the pinch pot and added flowers.  It was a very cute beginner project for our youngest artists!

 Clay Soft Cylinders:  These pieces were modeled off of Dale's soft cylinder series.  His pieces have drawings on them so when students were creating their slabs we drew relief drawings into the clay before joining the ends.  Students were taught to emphasize the 'soft' appearance by gently squishy the sides of their cylinders.  Perfect for our 3rd grade!

Clay macchias:  These pieces were rolled out and draped over a bowl to dry.  Students cut out an organic shape and added texture.  They created nice bowl forms.  2nd grade project.