Chihuly Tower

5th graders studied Chihuly too. I know these Towers are all over art blogs now, but they are so cool. It was nice to have my two fifth grade sections work together to make this sculpture. It took us almost a month to complete working on it here and there between other projects. I found it to be a great stress relief for my special friends from other classes too when they needed a break from their work or a distraction for awhile. It really brightens up the entry way to our school:)

Dale Chihuly Flowers

4th graders learned about the ancient art of glass blowing through some YouTube videos that I had seen on other art blogs. I also showed a Power Point that my friend at Artolazzi had made for her kiddos when she did a Chihuly unit. The students created Macchia Flowers using coffee filters, markers, liquid starch, they paper mached the stem of the flowers with tissue paper. The last step was to splatter paint because Macchia means spotted in Italian.

Chihuly Ikebanas and Macchias

I teach at multiple schools. At my main school I'm working on a Chihuly Tower with my fifth graders. [I got the idea from other art blogs, Mr E's and my friend Mrs. Barolazzi (Artolazzi)}] But I teach one fifth grade section at my traveling school, so I combined two Chihuly projects. I combined the Ikebana and macchia projects for my fifth graders. The macchias are made out of coffee filters, markers, and liquid starch attached with pipe cleaners. The Ikebanas are soda bottles with paper mached tissue paper. I had them add tempera paint dots since Macchia means spotted in Italian. And lastly, we added glitter gloss to make it look shiny like glass.