We followed the suggestions in the project outline (closing our eyes and feeling things, then crumpling and flattening out our paper). The idea that most students went with was the use of watered down tempera paints. We were hoping that the paints would be watered down enough to flow through the wrinkles or the "valleys" on the paper. Students could either use the paint brush, tilt their paper back and forth to move the watered down paint, or blow on the drops of watered down paint.
Most used a brush to drop paint onto their paper and tilted the page. We were doing the painting outside (finally some sunshine and warm weather!) and it was a very windy day, so the wind was also a factor in how some of the paint was moved around... :)
Much of the finished artworks look very abstract and like the paint was flung, but that was not quite what happened. Also, some of the students made comments like "this is New York City" or "this is a metropolis" for a paper very full of paint. Others made comments about it being more rural when there were areas with less paint, just as we would expect to see on a road map.
Overall, they had a really fun time with the activity! It is also more fun to paint outside than in the portable! :) To see a presentation of Feel the Flow project, please click here.
Thanks!
Kaarina
Kaarina Losey is the 6th grade teacher at Ryerson P.S. in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Her group of artists are making and sharing art with the Päivi Huhtinen and her group of 6th graders from The English School in Helsinki, Finland.
