In the Art Room: Dot Day Radial Designs by 3rd Grade

Hey, kids! Today I'm sharing with you the follow up to a lesson I shared a coupla weeks ago: Tissue Paper Relief. Because of the delicate nature of these tissue paper reliefs, I knew the kids would need to back them on something. So, after a review of radial balance and design, as well as the elements of art, we created these colorful backgrounds, added our tissue creations to them and, viola! Third grade successfully created their dot designs for Dot Day!  

Aren't they so spectacularly colorful? I swear they practically glow in the dark! In case you missed it, here is the video I created to introduce the kids to radial balance and design as well as the process of making the tissue reliefs:

BIG SHOUT OUT to AOE and Blick for sharing this lesson at the most recent online conference. 

Surprisingly, this project was a quick one. We spent one day creating our tissue reliefs which needed a day (or more) to completely dry before popping out.

Once dry, I popped the designs out as they are pretty delicate and I didn't want the kids to accidentally tear them. The following art class, they were given 10" cardboard rounds. They traced their tissue relief in pencil and then created a radial design in black marker.

I reminded them to keep their designs big because they would be coloring with these bad boys:

So I'm a sucker for all things fluorescent. And so are the kids. I love these Gallery brand oil pastels which you can find in most of your art supply catalogs and Amazon. 

Creating and coloring the design took them just under an hour. Enough time to attach our tissue reliefs to the center and have them ready for a display in the hall! 

What I love about this project is that it reinforced our study of radial balance...

Gave us the chance to work with a variety of art supplies...

And create something really cool! Definitely a project I see myself teaching again in the future. 

I'm not usually a repeat offender when it comes to art projects but for this one, I might have to make an exception.

I know several of you purchased the rubbing plates after hearing about it from AOE. I'd love to see where you take this project!

Until then, have a super bright week, y'all! 

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In the Art Room: Tissue Paper Relief by Third Grade

Now that our Monochromatic Selfies are complete, the third grade was ready to spend their third day in the art room creating tissue paper reliefs! I've been looking for a different spin on Dot Day and when I saw Blick present this at the AOE Now summer conference, I knew I had to give it a go!

This project took us the hour to complete and made for so much prettiness (not to mention educatin'). I created the video to share with my students...but you are welcome to share it with yours! 

Now, the relief might be finished but the project isn't complete yet! Our next step will be to adhere them to 10" cardboard rounds found on Amazon (I just have them sitting on 8" rounds for the photo) and continue our study of radial balance. I'll be sure to share that with you when they are complete. I was just too excited by these lovelies not to share right away!
 I mean...so fun, right?

 For this project, you'll need some of the following:

* Texture plates I used the ones that was recommended by Blick at the AOE conference. I liked the circle design as it went perfectly with our Dot Day lesson. However, they have a ton of cool texture plate designs to chose from. I purchased thirty plus because that's how many third graders I have in a class...and the artwork will need to remain in the texture plate until completely dry. 

 * Tissue paper squares These small squares are PERFECT if the kids are wanting to create a design. I left that completely up to the students. Many chose to create a radial design on their plate while some did a random one. I was cool with both. 

I was DREADING the idea of cutting tissue paper. I was so excited when I found these at the Dollar Tree! I purchased one for each table of four students and it was more than enough. It is a bleeding tissue, however...so some designs may get a little fuzzy around the edges. I was willing to take that as opposed to cutting thousands of squares.

* Large Tissue Paper This is where all of your scraps come in handy. The kids were instructed to use the smaller pieces for their design portion. When that was complete, they were to put AT LEAST three layers of large tissue on the back to strengthen the tissue design. 

* Watery Glue...with GLITTER! I just put white glue and water in a cup and sprinkled glitter into that. The kids also used soft brushes to apply the glue. Anything bristly tour the tissue more than normal. 

The kids put a piece of tape on the back of the plate with their name and teacher code. Here's what they look like as they are drying...not so interesting as the cool design is underneath!

 Not even gonna lie: the big draw back to this project was popping the creations out of the plate. Because the tissue is pretty fragile, I knew the kids might accidentally tear their work and become frustrated. It took me about 10 minutes to bust all of these bad boys out of the texture plates. I did crack a few of the plates while doing so...but they're fine to use again. 

Once popped out, the kids will trim around their circle design, cutting off the excess. 

 I know they'll be thrilled to see them when they get them back!

 Next up: add to a cardboard round and continue the radial design! 

This was such a fun and unique project that the kids really enjoyed. I don't often repeat projects but I can see this one happening again in the ole art room sometime soon!

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