In the Art Room: Floating Chalk Prints

Ya'll might recall the suminagashi or paper marbling technique I recently shared. In that post, I shared the pros and cons of the whole experience. They kinda went like this. 

Pros: 

• The kids loved it. Just the idea of making paint float, creating a design and then capturing that floating paint on paper was thrilling for them. 
• The results were usually pretty rad. 
• Each paper piece was unique, just like the artist.

Cons: 

• The carrageenan (powderized seaweed) and water mixture had to be blended the night before and left to "rest". Which meant I had to remember to do it before leaving for the day. And me remembering ANYTHING at the end of a school day, other than picking up dinner at the drive thru, is a miracle.
• The stuff feels like snot. Like super snotty snot.
• Near the end of a marbling run, the designs were often not as vibrant because of the muddied waters.

Having experienced all that, I shared my love-hate on the aforementioned post and asked your advice. And ya'll delivered! This here floating chalk project was one of the mentioned ideas that I thought I'd share with you. But before I get to that, here are some other great ideas that were suggested: 

• Ingrid of NorridgeArt wrote: I've used Elmer's art paste, which turns out to be methyl cellulose, which works great and is really comparable in price as far as I can tell, to buying it in bulk. I would second using the tote-trays. After many uses, the remaining acrylic paint sinks to the bottom, and eventually, it does gray the water and dull the transferred colors a little. I haven't done this for years and I think I will crack into this soon! Fun! 
• Phyl of There's a Dragon in my Art Room said:  Hey, Cassie, I don't know why I didn't think to tell you this before: liquid starch (the inexpensive blue stuff in the bottle) works GREAT for marbling, using watered down acrylic paint just like you did. And we used cheapo plastic forks for marbling. Only when we were done, we used tissues to blot them gently. THAT was the disgusting messy part, but the results looked a lot like yours, brighter than shaving cream marbling. Test it! (She also wrote on my facebook page): Have you done shaving cream marbling? It's easy, it makes your room smell good, and when you are done the shaving cream all over the place cleans the tables!
• Laura wrote:  Do not be afraid to experiment with India inks. The best color you can get is to use thinned down oil paints but with students it's not the safest method. (I too teach kids in my private studio) I have gotten the best results with kids using air brush paint. The createx brand is the one I have used with good results. My friend told me the best description she could give to how much to thin down the paint it get it to the consistency of whole milk. I found that those plastic utility tubs are perfect for using to put the mixture in- keeps the paint contained better when they are putting it on the moss mixture. I use small paint brushes to put the paint down because they seem to have better control than with the eye droppers.
• Amazingly awesome author Pam Stephens (of the Dropping In book series) wrote:  I have a never-fail method that Nancy Walkup {editor of SchoolArts} taught me. It's nothing more than a tub of shallow water, Prang Freeart chalk, something to scrape the chalk with (plastic knife works), an old comb or fork (to stir the chalk), and heavy white construction paper. I wear plastic gloves because the chalk stains like the dickens. Just hold the chalk over the water and scrap whatever colors you want. Stir with an old comb or whatever you have to get a nice design. Drop the paper on the chalk. Let it sit for about 30 seconds. Pull the paper off the water and TaDah! Marbled paper. Dries in a jiffy (about half an hours). You can also use colored construction paper depending on the colors of chalk you use. WARNING: This is addicting.
• Mrs. Walton commented:  Use tote trays instead of cookie sheets. Fill half way with water. Have one sheet of posterboard directly next to the tote tray so you can immediately have a place to put the soaking paper. Use pastels and a cheap pair of scissors to scrape color onto the water and let it float. If they accidentally break the chalk into the water, tell them not to fish it out. The minute you stick your finger in teh water, it breaks the tension on the water and the chalk sprinkles start to sink. Folding (not creasing) so that the ends of the paper are up (think U shape), set the paper in the water center first. Slowly let the edges go onto the water mixture. This keeps water bubbles from forming (as badly) on the paper. Then, I tell the kids to grab the corners closest to them and drag the paper up towards them #1 so that they are dragging more chalk onto the paper as it's lifting, #2 so they can see what they are getting when they lift it, #3 so that the water is still dripping downwards when it's lifting into the tote tray. Then, simply place it onto the posterboard next to it.

Aren't those just the best suggestions?! Thank you, art friends, you're the best. When I ran out of carrageenan the day before my last group of students were to marble, I decided to give Mrs. Walton's idea a go as I had all mentioned supplies on hand. And it was a total success! Here's how we did it.

Just like she mentioned, I filled some tote trays with water. I decided to cut some old plastic lids in half as scrapers and laid out some chunky chalk.

Now, I have to recommend that you not use any ole chalk for this project. I mean you could...but the small stuff will probably just break and side walk chalk is just too lacking in color. I strongly recommend ordering a couple sets of Prang's Freart chalk (I think I ordered mine from Nasco). It's vibrant and big enough for little hands.

Ya'll, the process was so super simple it was kinda ridiculous. The scrapped their chosen colors with the cut lid until their tray looked like this...

(ooooh, pretty.)

Then, holding their star parallel with the surface of the water, they dropped it onto the water while I lowered their paper on top of the star. Together, we "massaged" their paper to capture the chalk. We knew it was working when we saw a faint outline of the star and the colors of the chalk through the back of the paper. Slowly, I lifted the paper out. Sometimes, I would see a white spot where it didn't take at which point I would lower the paper again and attempt to pick up the chalk. Once I lifted the paper out, the student plucked the star from the water. They looked a little like this.

Amazing, right?

I love the layers of vibrant color.

And their stenciled papers looked like this. The kids thought it was Christmas.

Once dry, these were sprayed with fixative (or AquaNet if you live in the 80's) so the chalk wouldn't smear.

So. Would I do this method again? Definitely. It was so much easier and the results were ALWAYS amazing. It was a fun and new printing technique that fascinated the children. 

However, it just wasn't the same as suminagashi. This isn't true paper marbling because you cannot really manipulate the chalk once it's on the surface of the water. For that reason, I will continue to also use the suminagashi technique...even if the stuff feels like super snotty snot.

By the way... I'm so super stoked about this Saturday's conference, you don't even know! I cannot wait to see what other art teachers have to share. Are any of you lovelies attending The Art of Education's online conference this Saturday? If so, just an FYI, my presentation is off the chain goof-ball. Just so's ya know. Looking forward to chatting with you!

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In the Art Room: Marbled Paper Stenciling

Alright, what you see here is the result of "I wonder what would happen if we tried this" about 3 minutes before the kids walked into the room. I'd planned on us trying our hand at the Japanese art of suminagashi, which translates "floating ink", but was able to throw in a little stenciling too. That is if all the stars lined up (no pun intended) and the kids were able to capture the paint on their paper at just the right moment. More on that in a minute.

First, lemme tell you what I told the kids. I explained to them that we were not only going to make paint float (which received a lotta "what?!"s) but also capture that floating paint with our papers (which got a lotta "how in the world!?"s). I had them "go shopping at the store" for one sheet of paper and two card stock stars. I inherited about 500 of these stars from my mother-in-law and haven't stopped finding projects for them (thanks, Diana!). One of the reasons I think this worked great as a stencil was because of the thickness of the stars. I don't think regular paper stencils would work as well. But that's just a guess.

The great thing about these stars is that they have a little dye cut hole in them so we can easily string them together later. Still dreaming up project ideas for these guys. For now they are simply pretties.

These two sheets were created on our first day of marbling when my marbling mixture/paint mixture was off. You can see this by the clumping and streaking of the blue paint on the right. I still love the result.

So you wanna attempt the Japanese art form of suminagashi? I hafta tell ya, it's a bit tricky getting the ratio mixtures just right (it involves measuring which is math-esque and therefore gross like boys and boogers). But if you are willing to give it a go, here's what worked (most of the time) for me: 

Supplies: 

• Blender (I have a thrifted one. You won't want to use a personal one. Unless you're making slimy smoothies for someone you don't like.)
• Carrageenan (That'd be powderized seaweed. Your bigger art supply chains and online retailers will have this). 
• Trays. Use deeper ones then you see here if you are working with many classes in a row.
• Watered-Down Acrylic Paint (I use watered down craft store paint).
• Droppers
• A Hair Pic or homemade version (I crafted mine outta toothpicks and foam core. It looks like some kinda torture tool...which gives me lots of ideas when the time out spot just isn't doin' the trick [kidding! ... kinda]).
• Paper (der)

Prep:

• Do yourself a favor and follow the directions on the package. You'll be blending up to one gallon of water per two tablespoons (if memory serves me correctly) in warm water. 
• Pour mixture into shallow trays and allow to rest for up to 12 hours. I did this in my art room right before leaving for the day.

What the carrageenan does is thicken the water so that it can hold up the paint. You're trying to get that paint to float on the surface of the water. For this, the paint needs to be pretty watery and light. So I mixed paint and water in cups and squirted it into the tray to test it's floatiness. If it sank, I added a little more water.

So I discovered I only had two picks. For 20 kids. So I had to improvise and make these bad boys outta foam core and toothpicks. I'm mighty proud of my MacGyver'ness. P.S. I promise that's not blood from my earlier torture device comment.

Turns out kids don't know how to use droppers. Did you know this? So we had a little chat and practiced pinching the droppers in the air. We also had to discuss that you are to gently squeeze the dropper to release the paint. NOT squeeze it hard and douse the art teacher. Ahem. 

Now, I have classes of 20 students, 4 trays and 30 minutes. Which is like a recipe for disaster. To kinda make it work, I had all the children gather around those two tables you saw earlier, planted one child in front of each of the four trays and walked them through the directions as their buddies looked on. After giving them a moment to add the colors to their tray, we moved on to using the pic or "feathering."

I really had to stress that with the pic, the goal is to create designs in the paint for the paper to capture. Not simply stir the paint all around. Some of 'em got it and the others that didn't were quickly straightened out by their buddies that were watching them.

Then came the capturing part. I helped each individual child with this step. I had them place their stars gently in the tray with their names up. I quickly dropped their paper on top, took it out and they were to quickly remove the stars. This didn't always happen quickly because they were so stunned looking at the paper I had lifted out. Again, buddies on hand would say, "your stars are sinking!" and they'd be removed from the slimy solution. Which feels like snot. Not gonna lie.

Okay, honestly? The stenciling was like a happy accident...when it worked. Sometimes the kids didn't get their stars placed quite right and the simply ended up with a marbled paper. And, honestly, they didn't care. They were just so in love with the process and the magical idea of capturing paint.

However, I'm a little sad the results weren't as vibrant as I remember our marbling projects in the past being. Have you marbled this way before? It always seems rather hit or miss to me. Do you have sure fire method? I'd love to hear it.

Of course, shaving cream is super fun and easy...but I really wanted to give the experience of suminagashi because we are currently studying Japan. One kit I had included methylcellulose which didn't work at all. Almost positive that was operator error. Have ya'll used that with any success? Can you come over to my place and show me how it's done? I have coffee and chocolate.

For now, I will continue using this method. I'm excited to share this with my older students because I think they'll love it.

Doesn't this look like a shooting star?

Until next time, you're marbling thoughts would be appreciated. Because (wait for it...) I've just about lost my marbles working with this stuff (can I get a wahwah-waaaaah). 

Oh! AND I'm super stoked by all of ya's interested in the book club! Yay! Let's be smart and literary together. Can't wait to see which title the final vote comes down to. 

Until next time, have a great week!

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