Finished artwork is 9×12″ with an 11 x 14″ white paper border.
This 5 day ( 40 min. each class) mixed media art lesson focuses on 6 of the 7 Elements of Art; Form, Line, Shape, Color, Texture, and Value. This art lesson is inspired from a combination of two art teachers- Laura athttps://www.paintedpaperart.com and @amymcreynolds on Instagram with some variation.
You may have seen this lesson before on my 5th grade art lessons page. It’s basically the same lesson except in 4th grade we used 10 year old, up-cycled messy mats for either the vase or table rather than bubble wrap printing! I love the texture, beautiful mark making and fun pops of color with these messy mats!
Here’s a few from 5th grade with the bubble wrap printing.
To see my full blog post on the 5th graders mixed media bouquet of flowers artwork with bubble wrap printing, you can click on my link HERE
This is the first year I decided to teach it to 4th grade ( at just one of my two schools because I only teach ONE 4th grade class there). I would love to teach it to my 4th graders at my other school, but I’m on a cart over there (4 days a week) and I have FOUR 4th grade classes, so it’d be a bit much. Between the clay, storing the clay flowers to dry, the splatter painting, painting the clay flowers, all the cut paper and glue and hot gluing of all those clay flowers…it’d be a real challenge off a cart!
BUT…that being said…I’m really glad I did teach it to one class, and my students had a blast creating them! AND they’ll be displayed alongside all my other 4th graders artwork (Enlarged flower drawings inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe) at the newly annual “4th grade spring showcase celebration” that specialists (art/music/P.E.) put on in a couple of weeks! This 4th grade spring showcase started just last year, and last year I displayed all 4th graders Victorian houses.
For this lesson we used white Model Magic clay, splatter painting with watercolors on 80# white paper, tempera paints to paint the clay flowers, flower’s stems and leaves, colored railroad poster board paper, up-cycled messy mats, and scissors and glue sticks.
DAY 1
Students splatter painted with watercolors on one 12×18” 80# white drawing paper each. They could use any colors they wanted. This painting would then be used for either their table or for their vase later on. That painting day was fun but SUPER messy haha, as you’ll see in the photos below!
DAY 2
Students each received a 1 ounce small packet of white model magic to create 5 flower heads. To make 5 flowers, we used two 1 ounce packets in total, but we started off with just one so I wouldn’t have to wrap any left over clay or throw it out.
I demonstrated under the document camera ways to create a bunch of different flowers, but students could make any kind they wanted as well.
I showed students how to roll a small chunk of clay into a small circle, about the size of a ping pong ball, then flatten the ball with their palm (to about the thickness of an oreo cookie), then using scissors, cut small triangular sections out all the way around and then shape the remaining sections with your fingers to create the flowers petals.
From there they used their fingers to shape and point the ends if they wanted, or leave them more straight on the ends. They could also cut up into each petal at the end and create a fringed edge. Then the leftover clay from the triangle cut outs were balled up and flattened a bit to make the flowers center. They could poke little dots in the flowers centers too for added texture with a pencil as well.
Other balls of clay were made into tulips, buy repeating the same steps as above, but then stretching the circle out a bit to an oval, then cutting two triangles out from the top to make three points for the top of the tulip.
I also showed how to layer one finished flower on top of another to add more dimension, circle “button” flowers, and roses. To make the roses, take a very small amount of clay and create a ball, flatten it out so it’s fairly thin, and shape into a small oval. Then roll the clay into itself starting at one end to make the roses center (where petals are the tightest). Then take tiny amounts of clay, roll into small balls (the size of a pea) and flatten with your finger in your palm to make additional rose petals, and attach to the rose in layers all the way around.
Students could create a variety of 5 flowers, or they could be a combination of repeating just a few! Students were very creative and came up with some fun “pac-man” shaped flowers, delicate lavender, and other unique flowers!
I asked the cafeteria staff if I could buy a bunch of styrofoam lunch trays for this lesson and they were so nice to just let me take an entire sleeve (probably 100 trays!)
The clay sticks to paper plates and many other surfaces so it’s important to use a non stick surface for this lesson. You could use tinfoil over a plate which would work too. I like the fact that the lunch trays have 5 individual compartments though, so the flowers don’t touch each other and stick to one another as they dry. Then kids just wrote their names with a sharpie along the edge of the tray. Highly recommend styrofoam lunch trays for this!!! Plus- they easily fit in the drying rack being on the trays, without hurting any of the flowers!
Flowers were stashed away in the drying rack to harden until the next art class. To completely harden it takes a couple of days depending on the thickness of the clay.
DAYS 3 – 4
Students painted their flowers with liquid tempera paint. This took 2 art classes to finish painting all 5 flowers because a bunch of kids were absent on day one of painting, and some kids just needed more time.
I put the paints in ice cube trays (you can buy these silicone ice cube trays with hard plastic lids on Amazon as seen below), to separate colors and for ease of sharing at tables.
I had to give some of my tempera paint brushes haircuts for this lesson. I thought I had smaller tempera brushes somewhere in my art room but I didn’t. So…I improvised!
Students could paint their flowers any colors they wanted! I added the whole rainbow of colors as well as mixed blue and green paint to make teal, and red and white paint to make pink.
Kids started on the petals first, leaving the center last, in order to hold them while painting. They rinsed their brush well in water and wiped on a paper towel between changing colors. Some students decided to paint their flowers with the whole rainbow of colors!
DAY 5
On the final day students assembled everything together!
To prep —after school one day, I cut the railroad poster board paper into 9×12” sheets from 22”x28”sheets (giving me 4 -9×12” sheets per large sheet). Then I hot glued all students 5 flowers onto each sheet of 9×12″. One year I did this lesson and the pack included light pink paper, but this time it did not FYI.
Teachers out there reading this- this took a bit of time (a little over an hour per class of 27 students). I picked out the color for the paper, wrote each students name on the back and had 2 hot glue guns going as I worked. After, I placed all their papers with flowers in a large cardboard mason box to disperse in class later.
I also cut their 12×18” splatter paintings in half to 9×12” and paper clipped together. Then I cut beautiful old (10 years old?) messy mats into 9×12” sheets to use as either the vase or table.
I also created 5 different vase templates for students to trace over either their splatter painted papers or the cut messy mats. I think including a tracer was helpful, since getting the sizing right to fit the vase under their flowers might have been a bit tricky.
I just added these 5 vase templates in my TpT store for only $2! My TpT store is HERE!
Students also each received a 4”x9” tagboard template to use to trace over either paper for their table. Last time I did this lesson with 5th graders, I had them use rulers to measure for their table and then cut. But this year with 4th graders I just wanted to make sure we were able to complete the lesson on day 5. Plus using the table tracer allows kids to select an area from wherever they want on their paper, rather than just measuring from the bottom of the paper.
First students choose a section from one of their splatter painted papers or from a section of a messy mat sheet to create their table, using their table tracer. Once that was cut and glued into place they used one of the vase tracers to trace on either paper.
I suggested they use both papers (one for the table and a different one for the vase) for more visual interest, but they could use the same paper if they really wanted.
For a final step, students used 2 different shades of green liquid tempera paint (a dark green and a lighter minty green) to paint flower stems and leaves.
They all turned out so lovely! I love the variety of flowers, textures, colors AND unique artistic decisions!!
LEARNING GOALS:
Students can define mixed media
Students can demonstrate 3D sculpting by manipulating, rolling, and attaching Model Magic to create form and dimension
Students can apply the elements of art; Line, Shape, Color, Form, Texture and Value in their artwork and explain where they used them
I’m thinking I might make a YouTube tutorial on this lesson—or at the very least, on how to make clay flowers. Before I do though, I’m curious to know if it’s something people would be interested in—if you’d be interested in watching it please send me an email (through the contact section on my website on my “contact” page) or you can DM me through Instagram.
Please check out some of my previous posts by clicking on the links below!
4th grade “Enlarged Flower Drawings” and 5th grade “Splattered Paintbrushes”!
Mixed Media Cake inspired by Wayne Thiebaud
Mixed Media Watercolor Self-Portraits – 5th grade
One point Perspective Cityscapes – 5th Grade
NEW YouTube Art Tutorial! “April Showers Brings May Flowers” -2nd Grade
2nd Grade “Thinking of Summer Self-Portraits” and 1st Grade “Dream Houses”
Winter Northern Lights! 5th grade Art Lesson
Draw your own Inventions – 1st Grade
GRID DRAWINGS inspired by Chuck Close! -5th GRADE
Winter Cardinals -4th grade and Superhero Masks – 2nd grade!
(The masks would be a great 1-2 day project for the end of the year art lesson! Kids LOOOVE making their own unique masks and could be for any grade level! And I have 4 PDF Printable mask templates in my TpT store for only $2.50!)
The link below goes directly to my “Springtime Art Lessons” page (39 art lessons listed w/ pics!)
https://www.artwithmrsfilmore.com/springtime-art-lessons/
Thanks so much for visiting my site today! I’ll be posting again soon on 5th graders “Mixed Media Watercolor Self-Portraits” as well as “K and 1 Self-Portraits”!
My TpT store is HERE!
