Potted Sunflowers

Grade 1 students made these potted sunflowers to celebrate the beginning of Spring. Plant pots are paper cups painted brown, a kebab skewer was painted green for the stem and the sunflowers were coloured and cut out from a template I created. I poured a little plaster into each cup to it weigh down and to plant the flowers in. Students made leaves from scraps of green card and glued to the stem.


 

Ancient Egyptian Style Carved Tablets

Grade 7 students created these Ancient Egyptian inspired carved tablets from plaster.

After studying the designs used in artefacts and heiroglyphics, each student drew a design on paper. We made a plaster block by mixing up plaster in the bottom of an icecream container. Once set, the plaster was popped out of the container, the edges were sanded and the students drew their designs onto their block in pencil. Carving tools were used to carve out their design and finished blocks were painted to look aged.

Plaster Cast Fossils

For this project I had students bring a small textured object to their art lesson (i.e an interesting leaf, shell etc). I then gave each child a small disposable plastic bowl with some dry Plaster of Paris in the bottom and went from one child to the next adding the correct amount of water to the mixture. Each child stirred the plaster to get it smooth. Once it was the right consistency, the students needed to place their object lightly into the plaster so it was half in half out.

The next day I popped the plaster pieces from their bowls and carefully removed the embedded objects. I also sanded the edges of each plaster disc so it was smooth and round.







  

When the students came in they applied two coats of paint to their fossil to make it appear aged. They firstly applied a brown undercoat and when dry, a small amount of white paint was dabbed on over the top in a dry brush manner.