Throwing Pots on a Car Axle in India and Beyond

No pottery wheel?  No worries.  These gentlemen will show you how to rig a wheel up in your own back yard.  

Happy Diwali

Blogging is so much fun for so many reasons, but the most wondrous thing is the connections I have made with people I would not otherwise encountered.  My original intent was to share my school art experiences with families in my own little community so it brings me unending happiness that people from the wide world over take a moment to drop in and check out my little blog. 

Today is the first day of Diwali the Indian Festival of Truth and Light.  Here's a link to a cute little Indian Elephant to help you celebrate.  Print it on card stock or use it as a template to trace. 

Happy Diwali!   

   

Kolams of Pondicherry

Painted Elephant Printmaking Project

Elephants play an important role in Indian culture and are painted and beautifully decorated for Festivals and Celebrations in India.  Third graders looked at examples of painted elephants and hosted an elephant celebration of their own.

Want to thank Laura over at Painted Paper for this idea.  I adapted it by including some flower stamping.  We also used toned chalk pastel paper in place of painted paper.

These elephants were made with a template.  You can draw your own or find a drawing tutorial here.
Feel free to contact me if you would like a copy of my template.  So here's another version of painted Indian Elephants.

To make the elephant...

Use foam stickers to make your elephant pattern stamp.

Tone  a piece of paper by chalking lightly with the side of your chalk pastels.  We used pinks, blues and grays for our paper.  Blend with a tissue.

Next stamp your toned paper with your elephant pattern stamp.  Use any method you like to stamp.    

We inked the stamps with a brayer.  We placed the stamp on our elephant paper.  We rolled our stamp using a cover sheet and a clean brayer to cover our paper with  a stamped-out  design.
    

Trace or draw an elephant on the back of your paper and cut it out.  Save the scraps to make an ear and a tusk.

Give your elephant a fancy blanket using patterned papers, fabric, scraps, ribbon, sequins, and glue.
Use chalks and paints and a small brush to add details.



Embellish with gold paint.