Wednesday, January 11, 2012

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

4 comments :

  1. These are stunning! They seem very sophisticated for 6th graders. I also want to urge you to put a Pinterest button on your blog-Thanks!

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  2. These are beautiful! What brand of gold and silver markers did you use? Is that plain 12x18 white construction paper?

    Thanks

    Rina (my new art room blog k6art.com)

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  3. The markers are Pilot brand gold & silver. They are essentially 'paint' markers b/c they don't wash out of anything! So, I am very selective as to which classes I let use them. We started with a 12x18 sheet of white paper for the background. Good luck!

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  4. They are all gorgeous! I love Xavier's color choices, reminds me of fire, but, Kalle's and India's are my favorites. Everyone did a great job!

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