Posts Tagged ‘leaves’

Leafy Critter Books

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

I’m pinning up a storm over on The Carle’s Pinterest boards getting ready for my nature workshop this Sunday. My favorite board to pin to, Bridging Art and Nature, is a growing archive of inspiring ways to experiment with, appreciate and observe nature together at home or with students in an artistic way.

One of the popular ideas I see floating around Pinterest right now is using fall foliage to create little leafy critters. Here are a couple of my favorite, most inspiring versions:

kokokoKIDS: Fall Leaves Craft Ideas

Leaf Critters via Little Emma English Home Blog

Leaf Alphabet via Martha Stewart.com via Apartment Therapy

At the end of the summer this year we did our own version of this activity with leaves and flowers collected from The Carle’s grounds and a nearby farm.  We pressed them for a few days between sheets of tracing paper and corrugated cardboard under the weight of heavy books.

Students selected which leaves and flowers they wanted from the trays and used Aleene’s Tacky Glue to attach them to pieces of white mat board.

When the covers were completely dry, we made enough photocopies of each child’s image so everyone would get to take home a book full of everyone’s critters.  The next day we helped the students bind their books with the Stick-and-Rubber Band binding method.  We used a 2-hole punch, sticks collected and trimmed, and rubber bands to bind the books.

If you don’t have the time to press leaves ahead of time, we’ve also created natural book covers with non-pressed leaves and flowers, and the outcomes were just as beautiful.

Let us know if you give this project a try or design your own version!

Follow The Carle’s growing Pinterest Boards! Bridging Art and Nature, Making Art with Children, Art Activities and Explorations, and Programs and Events.

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Posted in Activities, Classes, Elementary School, Infants & Toddlers, Middle School, Nature | No Comments »

How to Make Rubbing Plates with Natural Materials

Monday, July 30th, 2012

In my bookmaking workshop a few weeks ago,  several educators asked how to make the rubbing plates we used to create the texture accordion books during the class, so I thought I would share the steps here.  Below is an example of a set of rubbing plates I made recently for a family art program at The Dorman School in Springfield, MA  (students pictured above).  I chose the textures: string, seeds, leaves, “hair”, “raindrops” and grass, based on a selection of illustrations from the picture book The Black Book of Colors written by Menena Cottin and illustrated by Rosana Faria.

First, collect pieces of thick chipboard, mat board or corrugated plastic to use as the plate support.  If you are using chipboard or mat board I recommend sealing the surface first with a coat of Acrylic Gesso (available at art supply stores) before cutting them into your desired size.  Brush it on at least one side and let it dry completely (30 minutes to an hour).   Collect natural materials outside like leaves, grass, seeds, twigs or bark or purchase beans, grains,  seeds or other materials  from the store. Experiment with different materials and see what you like best!

Next, cut down the supports to the desired sizes, ours are in 5″ or 6″ rectangles or squares.  Spread an even layer of Light Modeling Paste (available at art supply stores) with a thick brush or plastic spatula on the gessoed side of the board.  Press the natural materials into the paste so they aren’t peeling away or lifting up. The paste has a consistency like thick cake frosting.

The paste acts as an adhesive as it dries. I recommend attaching leaves with the raised side facing UP so you will get a better rubbing.  Set your plates aside overnight to dry completely.

The next day, trim any excess material hanging off the edge of the plate (grass, string, etc) and make sure the surface is thoroughly dry before sealing them. To seal the plate I used Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Gloss (available in the paint department at the hardware store) and brushed an even coat over the top and sides of each plate and left them to dry outside in the sun or on a table indoors.  Brush on as many coats as you like, drying thoroughly between coats.  Two coats usually does the trick.

If you’re looking for other ways to use  Polycrylic Gloss, check out my Printing with Found Materials 2 post.

For more information about making handmade rubbing plates, download our Texture Rubbing Plates Printable PDF available on our Activities page.

How do you use rubbing plates in your classroom or at home?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Posted in Found Materials, Mixed Media, Nature, On the Road | No Comments »

Materials Play – Leaf and Flower Collages

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Materials Play at The Eric Carle Museum: leaf collage on contact paper

Today  kicked off our summer session of Materials Play in the Morning – a weekly drop-in activity for especially for toddlers. Aiyi has been helping me plan the activities. We have many fund ideas, so its hard to choose!

Materials Play at The Eric Carle Museum: leaf collage on contact paper

Since the orchard is awash with greenery of all kinds, we thought we’d try an idea I’ve seen on Pinterest using leaves and petals to create a collage on contact paper.

We happen to have a narrow roll of lightweight contact film that was donated to us. I think a heavier contact paper- like the kind you can find in the shelf liner section of the dollar store-  would have been better.

We prepped the contact paper by cutting it into trips twice as long as we thought the finished collages should be.

Materials Play at The Eric Carle Museum: table setup for leaf collages

Then, placing a sheet film side down/paper side up on the short table and light table, I peeled back the paper to expose half, sticky side up.  I used some painter’s tape to secure the strip to the table so it wouldn’t shift as the kids worked. Next time I might trim the flap of paper that was left, but I just taped that down too.  I also taped a few pieces to the window.

Materials Play at The Eric Carle Museum: table setup for leaf collages

A few children were interested in dumping petals and leaves on their sticky surface. One girl just liked pressing her hands and petals on the paper and taking them off again. If I were doing this with a class I would definitely have the students collect their own petals and leaves but I’d also have a few items I’d collect ahead of time.

When the children were done with their arrangement I peeled the rest of the paper off and folded the newly exposed half of the contact paper onto it. The kids then pressed their arrangement together and I told them to look at their collage over the next few days to see how it changes.

Materials Play at The Eric Carle Museum: leaf collage on contact paper

This program is for the half hour before the 10:30 storytime in the reading library, so this is as far as we took it.  When/if I do something like this with older children I might have them draw a large shape on a piece of white paper to slide under the contact paper so they could arrange their leaves and flowers in a shape they’d like to cut their contact paper into later.

And, speaking of storytime: to help the participants make further connections with the materials we used, Abigail included some books in a gardern/leaf theme in storytime directly after: Leaf Man by Lois Elhert’s, Ava’s Poppy by Marcus Pfister, What If Everything Had Legs by Scott Menchin, and We’re Rabbits written by Lisa Westberg Peters, Illustrated by Jeff Mack. She didn’t get around to it, but My Garden by Kevin Henkes would have been a great one too.

If you find yourself in the care of a toddler on a Friday morning between now and the end of August, stop on by at 10 am in the Studio! (Details here.) Next week’s materials: pasta and paint.

 

 

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Posted in Activities, At The Carle, Collage, Infants & Toddlers, Materials, Nature, Nurturing Creativity at Home, Preschool | No Comments »