Ink Blot Illustrations Inspired by Stefan Bucher

     After seeing this blog post over at A Faithful Attempt I was inspired to try this awesome process with my fourth graders at Suffield.  At A Faithful Attempt, the project was done with 8th and 9th graders, but I thought I could probably adapt it for younger kids, and it really went great and the kids really liked it.

     To start, we studied the ink blot illustrations of Stefan Bucher.  We looked at his blog where he posted a new ink blot illustration video clip everyday for 100 days.  He started each illustration with a blown ink blot, and then figured out how to turn the abstract blot into an understandable creature.

     We gave the exact same process a try.  We first put India Ink on our papers with brushes, and then used drinking straws to blow the ink around.  (We used paper that someone donated a few years ago that is really shiny.  This made the ink more able to slide around than it would on drawing or construction paper.)  When the ink the was dry we used permanent markers to transform them into understandable illustrations.  We also used watercolors and regular markers to add some color.  We tried to still keep lots of prominent white space like Bucher though.  The students had the option to add titles that could provide more information for viewers.  We talked about text in artwork and lettering for this.  I was really happy with the results!

Georgia O'Keeffe Inspired Tissue Paper Collages

     I love Georgia O'Keeffe in the spring time!!  I have a few lessons I do based on her.  If you like this one, you will probably also like this one for 2nd grade that is pretty similar.  For this one, we talked about balance and depth, cropping, and enlarging.  All students made tissue paper collages of flowers, but some chose to make theirs abstract.  I did a really quick demonstration on how to paint the liquid starch onto the 12" x 18" white paper, but encouraged the students to come up with their own application methods.  We also agreed that the more variation in methods the better!  I think this lesson is pretty straight-forward, so let me know if you would like any clarification!!!

    My tips for success are to use liquid starch instead of watered-down glue because it is just easier on brushes and makes for an easier clean-up.  We also stick to the rule of no wet or sticky hands in the boxes with the nice tissue paper!  The kids really did pretty well with this.  I've found that if you don't stress this you end up with lots of crumpled up tissue paper that is all stuck together shortly after embarking on a studio like this.