Tye-Dye Line Designs

I wrestled with this project for over a week now until FINALLY yesterday morning, I decided that we would create a sort-of 'zentangle' pattern in the foreground of our tye-dye paper.  Whew.   The kids LOVED making the tye-dye paper using water color markers.  Here are the steps:
1.  Draw a large swirl in the middle of the paper using a pencil.  Make sure to draw very lightly so the pencil will not show through the marker.
2.  Scribble the first color on the swirl line using the side of the marker to get a lot of watercolor on the paper.
3.  Scribble the second color next to the first color, overlapping just a bit.
4.  Scribble the third color in the remaining space, overlapping the colors just a bit.
5.  Mist the entire paper with water so the colors will bleed together.

But, what next?  I didn't want to ruin the 'musical' elements that we spent half the class working on last week.  I wanted there to be emotion, and whimsy, and added surprises...but I was struggling with what would work best.  So, I handed out some of my own tangle creations that I have photocopied, available on the activity shelves.  I inspired the students with the VERY simple process in creating shapes using line variations and filling in the shapes with patterns.  And then. I brought out. The. GOLD & SILVER MARKERS!!!  Ta-da!  That's what was needed to make these colorful creations special, interesting, and whimsical :)  Here are some of my 6th grade students' masterpieces:

 Nile

Xavier

Marissa

Drew

India

 Kalle