We are back with another project that uses recyclables. Our goal is to reduce the use of store-bought materials for art. Instead, we will focus on using materials that we have readily available in and around our home. We collected old flyers from my mom who receives flyers in mail (even though she has a no soliciting sign!). Then we looked through the flyers to see how they can be used for an art project. This way we can reuse old pictures from flyers and turn them into new ones.
Today, we will be making a picture of an underwater scene. A Scene is like a photograph of a particular event that took place or a portrait of a place where something happened. This picture is made up of three components that create depth in your artwork:
Today, we will be making a picture of an underwater scene. A Scene is like a photograph of a particular event that took place or a portrait of a place where something happened. This picture is made up of three components that create depth in your artwork:
- Background (images in the very back; to give an illusion to the viewer that these images are the furthest from us and sometimes smaller and/or faded),
- Middle Ground (images in the middle of the picture; to give an illusion to the viewer that these images are at a medium distance and are visible but visible with less details), and
- Foreground (images in the front; to give an illusion to the viewer that these images are closest to us and sometimes these images can be clear with lots of visible details).
Materials Needed:
- Glue stick
- Old Flyers or magazine pictures
- A 8 1/2" by 11" sized cardboard paper (possibly from the inside of a cereal box or other rectangular boxes)
- A little bit of imagination with some creativity :)
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| © Everything Family Guide |
What to do?
- Look through the flyers or magazines images and use the color choices available to come up with an idea of your recycled paper scene. Some ideas for scenes include:
- Underwater or Ocean Scene
- A Garden
- A Face/Portrait of yourself or a historical figure
- An Animal or Insect
- Flowers
- A Favorite Cartoon character or fictional character
- Cut out an 8 1/2" by 11" sized rectangular square from a cardboard box.
- Now you will be doing something fun: tearing paper. Tear small pieces or long strips of paper from magazines or glossy flyers.
- Start by gluing strips or pieces of paper on the cardboard to build a background and a foreground. In our case, we used the pizza flyer to make the bed of the ocean in tan/orange shades and used white/gray/blue/purple shades for the water (we didn't have any flyers with the color blue available). For the middle ground, we will use cardboard shapes to depict sea animals floating or swimming in the ocean.
- Next, cut out shapes of fish from leftover cardboard. Then glue strips of paper on it. When it dries, trim the excess paper around the edges. Make as many as like and you can also do other sea animals like octopus, sharks, dolphins, whales, sea horses, etc. These shapes will go in the middle ground using a pop up piece of cardboard.
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| © Everything Family Guide |
Note: This is how you will make something pop up from a picture to create a 3D effect: fold a strip of cardboard in two or three folds. Then glue one end to the cardboard piece and the other end to the picture.
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| How to create a 3D Pop-up Effect © Everything Family Guide |
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| Tearing paper and putting together our recycle art project © Everything Family Guide |
Finally, add finishing details like under water plants, sea shells or other animals. We used sea-themed stickers.
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| The Preschoolers' Finished Project © Everything Family Guide |
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| My Sample: A Desert Scene © Everything Family Guide |
This project is a little time consuming and may take around half an hour (minimum) to complete. The very first project of this kind should be done as a guided project where the teacher guides and assists in the making process. This is especially true for the little ones. For older kids, this project can be done as an independent activity. Overall, we had a fun morning recycling and doing some cool art!
Any ideas on how else we can use recycled paper strips or pieces?
Annie
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