Week of April 30 - 6th Grade, 7th Grade, & 8th Grade

Create a stained glass inspired, foil embossed art piece.

To create this beautiful art piece we will be using a few different materials.

You will need:

- a pencil

- multicolored permanent markers

- aluminum foil

- white glue

- string, yarn or twine

- cardboard for your projects canvas

To begin, think about what sort of stained glass design you’d like to make. This is a great opportunity to make an art piece for your mom for Mother’s Day (May 10th). Think about what kind of flowers are your moms favorite and draw those! I choose sunflowers for my subject. Birds also make awesome subjects for stained glass. Most of the Tiffany stained glass examples I’m posting below have a decorative frame around the subject. It makes the piece look more finished, so be sure to create some sort of frame around your flowers.

Once you’ve decided what you’d like to design for your subject grab your pencil and start sketching on the cardboard piece. Remember not to press too hard with the pencil in case you need to erase.

After You’ve drawn your entire design out with pencil (including your frame details) it’s time to get the glue and string ready. You will be tracing over each line with the white glue and pressing a piece of string along the glue line. Try to squeeze out the glue as slowly and evenly as you can so it doesn't make a huge blob.

Keep going like this til you’ve glued the entire design with your string lines.

Let the glue dry completely and then get a piece of aluminum foil ready that is a bit larger than your cardboard piece.

Carefully crumple your foil into a ball and then even more carefully, uncrumple and flatten it.

When your cardboard piece is completely dry you're ready to apply the aluminum foil layer to it. Spread a thin layer of glue on each flat section of your cardboard, between the string lines.

Now take your foil and beginning at the top of the cardboard, carefully press and rub the foil onto the flat parts. Be careful when pressing the foil when you’re close to the string lines so you don’t rip the foil.

Once you’ve pressed the foil down around all of the string lines, flip your cardboard over and tightly fold the extra foil over and glue it down to the back.

Let the glue dry for a few minutes, then grab your multi colored permanent markers and get ready to color!

Voila! Your gorgeous art piece is complete! Hang it up somewhere so your work can be admired by all! Or give it to your mom on Mother’s Day!

St. Lawrence students, please send a picture of your finished artwork to stlawrenceartclass@gmail.com so I can display it on the school’s website!