A Van Gogh Fail



As most of you know, not all art projects end up being a success.  The paper quilling below was an outright fail for my 6th graders.  If I would have used smaller construction paper, I think we would have seen success.  I allotted 5 days for the project, but the 6th graders were at the end of their grading period at the end of the 5th day.  They had to leave my class for music enrichment for the next 9 weeks.  I tell you, the project was a big fail!

 

 Here is one that almost got finished.

Hopefully, you can tell it is Van Gogh's Starry Night.

 

 

First, give the kids a piece of 9 x 12 sheet of construction paper.  I made the mistake of giving the kids a 12 x 18 sheet.  This was way too big!

 

Then, I cut the strips too small.  I had read to cut them 1cm by 6 cm.  These were way too short.  I suggest 1 cm by 12 cm.  Also, I separated the colors into different crates.  This organization method provided the kids with easy access to strips of their choice.

 

 

Next, I would suggest having a bowl of glue that kids can dip the strips in.  We glued each strip with our bottle of Elmer's and this took forever.  You would choose a strip and then roll it, and then, glue it.  It was so much easier to dip the strip in glue and roll.

 

Here are a few good attempts.

 

 

 

Here is the stack of the unfinished project.

 

 

In hindsight, I would change up several things.

I would use smaller paper. (9x12)

I would use larger strips. (1cm x 12cm)

I would have small bowls of glue for each child to use to dip their strips in.

I would talk and stress the importance of rolling some paper tightly and rolling some paper loosely.

 

Putting an end to this project with a "Seven Nation Army" by Jack White.

 

 

1965