Chihuly water bottle sculptures

Chihuly Water Bottle Sculptures 

This project turned out so cool! I of course found this great idea on Pinterest. I used the format from the blog art class with LMJ. The inspiration for the project is by the artist Dale Chihuly. He has a great website with his artwork here https://www.chihuly.com/

I had the kids collect water bottles for a couple of weeks. I probably had over a 1000 come in. I actually only used around 430. Each student in kindergarten and first grade painted one water bottle. 

I used primary and secondary colors of acrylic paint by Dick Blick. The students used almost all of the half gallons.

I cut the bottoms off and removed the lids before they painted them. They used long handled brushes and acrylic paint to paint the inside of the bottles. 

After they painted them I had them put them in baskets to keep them organized. Since they were wet inside it didn't matter if they were touching. 

When they were dry I cut them all into spirals. I think it only took me around an hour to do 144 bottles. I didn't trust my kindergarteners and first graders to do this part. I could see so many bottles cut short!!  

After they were all cut I bundled them into groups of four and tied them with fishing line onto the flat steel rods with holes that I had purchased from Home Depot. Our PTO actually helped fund this project. Again, this was not my original idea. I decided not to use a heat gun to splay them. I attempted it a couple of times and the ones I did looked like they had been run over with a truck. 

 I made three sculptures. Each sculpture had around 144 bottles. 

Our custodians hung the sculptures above the school stairs. I'm thrilled with the results and our  custodians did a great job hanging them. 

 

  

kindergarten Dale Chihuly Mural

Kindergarten Dale Chihuly Mural

I'v done this lesson many times in the past with my kindergarten classes although I have never combined  them to make a mural. The idea of course is to combine them to make them look like Dale Chihuly's ceiling installations. 

I start my class by doing an introduction on Dale Chihuly showing many examples of his bowls and then his ceilings of glass art. 

Each student is given a coffee filter and Mr. Sketch scented markers. They are to color the whole thing with just colors (no pictures). 

When completed I put it on a plastic cup and attached it with a rubber band.  I then sprayed it with starch. The kids love watching this part. 

When they were dry I glued them to white poster board and hung them in our school windows.I just dipped the art in Mod Podge and stuck it on the boards. This was much faster. They look awesome! I took these photos on a rainy day! This is an easy lesson and it took only one 50 minute class period. 

Chihuly paper bowls kindergarten art lesson

Chihuly Paper bowls

Students were introduced to the glass bowls by Dale Chihuly. I found a great You tube video for kids where it shows how he makes glass with his team. The students think he looks cool with his eye patch! 

Students first colored coffee filters with various markers. They could put any designs on the them as long as the entire filter was colored. Each student wrote their name and teacher code on a small card. This would be what we would put inside of their cups while they dried. 

 When completely colored I helped students wrap it around around a plastic cup and secured it with a rubber band. I then (while they watched), sprayed the entire thing with spray starch. I used one can per 35-40 students. It's only about a dollar a can. 

We put their name card inside the cup and put it on a shelf to dry. 

On the next class, students wrote their name and teacher code on a fresh card and glued it to the bottom of their bowl.

I have been doing this project for years, so I'm not sure where I saw this idea.