Stained Glass-Like Art Project

Last week, I shared my preschooler's dinosaur craft, and I commented that I wanted to possibly alter it for a co-op class.  Well, Friday at co-op, I was able to use a similar idea for the children's art project. 

The class is American History (art and writing) for third through fifth graders.  Using a free curriculum from National Endowment for the Humanities, called Picturing America, my co-teacher and I select one art work to study over two classes.  During the first class, we discuss the historical aspects of the time period or art work and assign creative writing projects.  The second class is spent reviewing the creative writing pieces and creating an art project. 

For the past two classes, we have been studying Louis Comfort Tiffany's Autumn Landscape - The River of Life (1923-1924).  Our first class, we discussed the artist's life and works, stain glass techniques, art elements within the piece, and took a walking tour of the church building, viewing the stained glass within it.  Since the subject matter of the selected piece was nature, my co-teacher taught the students the principles of writing a haiku.  Each child then was assigned to write a haiku for our next co-op day. 

The second class for Tiffany's Autumn Landscape - The River of Life was last Friday.  We began with a review of stained glass and art elements.  Next I outlined the project.  We used pages from Wildflowers: Stained Glass Coloring Book and Woodland Animals: Stained Glass Coloring Book, colored tissue paper, glue, scissors, and self sticking laminate sheets to create these:

The one of the left is my third grade {bright color loving} daughter's,

and the one on the right is my fifth grade {likes realistic end results} daughter's.

Method:

1.  Using a sponge brush, spread white glue thinly over a section of the picture

2.  Place pre-cut tissue paper squares (altering shape if desired) over the glue, press slightly

3.  Continue the process until entire page is covered

4.  Allow to dry, completely

5.  Using self sticking lamination sheets, adhere one sheet to the tissue papered side

6.  Trim excess off the lamination sheet

7.  Turn over to reveal a lovely stain glass like art work

For anyone interested: Picturing America has an educator's page full of resources and lesson plans free for downloading.