Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 – Suggested Ways to Use These Ideas With The APFS Projects Ideas to Use in the Schools Art Project Clay Slab Printing Focus on repeating patterns rather than random ones. Aim to arrange the pattern over the A4 space in a way that is visually pleasing. Try making a 2-colour print - choose colours which contrast e.g. red & yellow. Let the first print dry thoroughly before printing again, placing the design in a different place. Oil Pastel Resist Strips Use A4 size pieces of fabric instead of strips and arrange the drawn marks over the space in a repeating pattern before adding the Brusho®. Focus on just one type of drawn line e.g. flowing or angular lines. Collage Circles Make a series of circles as described in Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 - make sure that several circles will fit onto an A4 page. A variety of sizes will work particularly well. When the circles are dry arrange them on the A4 paper so that they are pleasing to the eye and glue down. This can then be scanned in order to be printed onto the chosen item. Skeleton Trees Paint the background as described in Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 and allow to dry. Mix some ready mixed paint with some PVA glue and instead of blowing, try dribbling the paint over the background in an interesting pattern. Allow to dry. Adding PVA glue means that the paint will have a raised texture when it dries. Experiment with the amount of PVA to see how textured the work can become. Glue Pictures Look at the work of an artist who uses patterns to inspire them e.g. Kandinsky. Pick out similar types of pattern and draw lightly onto paper. Drizzle PVA glue carefully over the lines and allow to dry. Natural Form Line Drawings Use a fine black pen to do the drawing, then isolate a section with a viewfinder - make sure you choose an interesting area that isn't too complicated. Trace the isolated section onto tracing paper, rub over the lines with a soft pencil and trace down onto A4 paper. Trace down again in a different place choosing whether to keep the same orientation or whether to rotate the image before tracing. Once the whole A4 sheet is filled select a limited range of colours and carefully paint each section to produce a bold abstract image. Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 – Suggested Ways to Use These Ideas With The APFS Projects Ideas to Use in the Christmas Card Project Oil Pastel Resist Strips Draw simple Christmas motifs on the fabric strips e.g. use white pastels to draw snowmen, green pastels to draw Christmas trees etc. Choose red or green Brusho® to dye the background fabric. Collage Circles Select materials in seasonal colours e.g. red and green. For best results, avoid glitter or very metallic materials as these are too reflective when they are scanned by APFS. Snowflake shapes could be applied to the circles or the circles could be decorated as if they are baubles. Patterned Papers Create a variety of patterned papers using complementary colours such as blue, purple and pink. Cut a wavy edge from one paper and a zig-zag edge on another, leaving one colour untouched. Stick the wavy edged paper on top of the untouched paper then leave a gap and stick the zig-zag paper down. This creates 3 bands of colour. When dry, draw a bauble shape on the back of the papers and cut out. Make sure that some of each paper appears on the bauble. Glue Pictures Use the PVA glue to draw seasonal designs onto stiff card. Cut the card into shapes suitable for Christmas tree decorations. Paint with a metallic colour on both sides. When dry, punch a hole in the top and add a hanging loop with thread. Natural Form Line Drawings Select an object to draw that gives a seasonal feel e.g. pine cones, a sprig of holly etc. Do the line drawing as usual then use polystyrene printing sheets (e.g. Press Print or Easy Print) to make a print block based on the drawing. Ink up as normal then print onto a variety of papers including coloured, tissue and textured paper. Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 – Suggested Ways to Use These Ideas With The APFS Projects Ideas to Use in the Create a Card / Easter Card Project Clay Slab Printing Try working with one shape in a range of different sizes. Overlap the shapes in a variety of ways to make interesting patterns. Use felt tipped pens to outline some shapes to emphasise them. Animal Inspirations Divide an A4 page into quarters and create a different animal pattern in each section. Oil Pastel Resist Strips Work on a larger piece of fabric instead of strips. Divide the fabric up into sections and draw one type of pattern in each section. Colour the background with Brusho dye in two colours, allowing the colours to seep into each other. Collage Circles Use different sized circles and put them together to create Easter chicks with the addition of beaks, eyes and legs. Choice of colours will be important to make this work. Skeleton Trees Focus on creating patterns while blowing the ink across the painted paper. Try to blow lines across the paper then blow at 90 degrees to make an interesting grid pattern. Blowing to make lots of small lines that branch out will make this even more attractive. Glue Pictures Draw regular patterns onto stiff card with the PVA glue and dry. Cut into Easter egg shapes and paint on one side only. Use foam pads to stick the egg shapes onto a sheet of coloured paper. The foam pads lift the eggs up giving a 3D appearance. Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 – Suggested Ways to Use These Ideas With The APFS Projects Ideas to Use in the Children as Designers Project Clay Slab Printing Choose 2 different shapes to press into the clay and make a series of repeating patterns. Animal Inspirations Create a variety of animal patterns and allow to dry. Draw a regular, straight-sided shape on the back of each pattern and cut them out. Tessellate each shape together and glue onto backing paper. Oil Pastel Resist Strips Lay a number of strips on the table trying out different arrangements until a pleasing selection of patterns and colours is achieved. Use a digital camera to photograph the fabric strips. Try zooming in close to an interesting section. Be sure to print the photo out to the correct size to use it for this project. Collage Circles Focus on one size of circle and use different tones of one colour to create an interesting pattern. Limited colour ranges also work well, for example cool colours or hot colours. Alternatively use 2 or 3 sizes of circle and make groups of circles in attractive arrangements. Skeleton Trees Paint the background paper as normal and allow to dry. Use a variety of ink colours to blow patterns across the background. Using darker versions of colours in the background is particularly effective. Patterned Papers Make a variety of textured papers in toning or contrasting colours. When dry, cut geometric shapes from the papers and glue them down in tessellating patterns. Ideas & Techniques Issue 2 – Suggested Ways to Use These Ideas With The APFS Projects Ideas to Use in the Calendar Project Clay Slab Printing Try using objects that have very distinctive textures such as shells. Mussel and scallop shells are particularly good. Roll the shell across the clay pressing down at the same time. This produces a clear and interesting print that works well as a single image. Collage Circles Focus on one circle size and challenge the children to find and use as many different textures as possible. Arrange the circles in rows that touch at the edges so the regular pattern contrasts with the interesting textures. Skeleton Trees Rather than blowing the ink to make a silhouette, try using a small, fine paintbrush and paint patterns or pictures onto the background. Patterned Papers Make textured papers in a range of colours and cut into strips. Use an A4 sheet of plain coloured paper and cut in strips but don't cut to the very edge - this leaves the strips attached. Take a strip of textured paper and weave it over and under the plain strips then push right up to the joined edge. Weave each strip making sure each one starts in the opposite way to the one before e.g. if the last strip started weaving under, then this one starts weaving over. Glue Pictures Draw repeating shapes with the glue e.g. angular or flowing shapes. Repeat to fill the space then allow to dry. Divide into 4 sections and paint each section in a colour to indicate the seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. Natural Form Line Drawings Create paper collage using the same natural object as used for the drawing task. Lightly draw the outline of the object on coloured paper and cut out. Repeat with the other coloured papers making sure you have 2 or 3 shapes in each colour. Arrange the shapes onto a fourth colour of A4 paper. Move the shapes around until a pleasing arrangement is found and glue down. Take a fine pen and fill in the gaps around the shapes with patterns and lines. It can be helpful to practice this in sketchbooks before starting on the main task.