Watercolor Still Life on Newsprint

Here are some gorgeous paintings we created, staying with the recycled theme. Newsprint can be a tougher surface than you might imagine. It also adds pattern and dimension to these still life paintings, not to mention that is being saved from the trash. Try to use pages with all type and no images, which may detract from the final piece. I can not remember where I was inspired by this lesson, so please speak up if you know. The children first drew their subject with as much detail as possible, using black and white cray pas. Then they were asked to add color using watercolors. Brilliant!

I found the blog that inspired this lesson! It's from Briargrove Elementary. They have lots of great recycled art projects! Thanks!

Recycled Robots

Here's another project from this summer's Recycled Art camp. I took this idea from the Deep Space Sparkle site— one of my favorites! The kids each worked on a 12x18 colored paper of their choice and printed using recycled materials such as empty spools of thread, pop lids, paper tubes etc. After their prints were dry they selected from the box of recycled goodies I've been amassing for the past few months. Can you see any product placement? We talked about trying not to think of packaging as the product it used to hold, but as lovely choices for shapes and colors. We also discussed the thought, time and money put into packaging—a great reason to take advantage of its use as art materials!

Magazine Flowers

I saw this lesson on the Teach Kids Art site, and had to make it part of my Recycled Art Camp this summer. We used recycled lids as our templates to trace four different sized circles on magazine pages of our choosing. Then we folded each circle in half three times and cut petal patterns onto the outer edge. Our smallest circle was left untouched to become the center of the flower. We also cut out a pair of leaves, and rolled up a half page from a magazine to become the stem. I also encouraged the students to add bits and pieces of their cutouts to fill the negative space of their compositions and to give them some pattern. Here are a few of our beautiful flowers.