Exploring Shape Project #1: Single Shape Exploration

Here's a project where you get to explore all the things you can do with a single shape

Materials (Note: You may not use all these materials, depending upon the techniques you end up trying.)

• White Paper or Posterboard
• Papers of Different Colors and/or Patterns
• Watercolor Paper
• Watercolors
• Markers
• Colored Pencils
• Uni-Ball Pen
• Acrylic Paint
• Pencil with Eraser
• Magazines
• Glue Stick

Tools

• Shape Template (see below) made from card stock
• Frisket Film (a cheap alternative is stick-on book cover plastic from Dollar Tree, which they have during back-to-school time in July and August)
• Paintbrushes
• Scissors

Instructions

1. First make a template of a simple shape from cardstock. You’ll want this shape to be fairly simple, since you’ll be repeating it over and over. You can draw your own shape, trace around a stencil, cut out a picture from a magazine that has a good shape and trace it, or cut your shape freehand from card stock. In the picture, I've cut out a chair shape from a magazine.

   

2. Use the techniques listed below to make many different versions of your shape. Choose whatever techniques you’d like to do; you don’t have to do them all. If you come up with your own ideas for versions of the shape, feel free to try them, too.
   1. Make an abstract watercolor. Find a spot of it you like and trace the shape there and cut it out.

      

   2. Trace the shape on a piece of frisket film and cut it out. Peel off the backing and stick it to your background paper. Color with a marker all around the edge of the shape. When you’re done coloring, peel the frisket shape off to reveal your shape in white surrounded with color.

      

   3. Trace and cut out your shape from pieces of colored and patterned papers that you like.

      

   4. Tape your template to your background paper with a small roll of tape on the back of it. Choose a color of acrylic paint and pour a little bit of it on a paper towel or styrofoam plate. Dip a pencil eraser in the paint and make dots around your shape, some overlapping the edges of the shape. You can use more than one color if you want. When you’re done making dots, remove the template from the background paper to reveal your shape.

      

   5. Look in magazines to find patterns and textures you like. Don’t pay attention to the content of the pictures, just look for colors, textures, and patterns. When you find ones you like, tear them out of the magazine and trace your shape template on it and cut it out.

      

   6. Trace your shape onto the backing paper. Using a Uni-Ball pen, divide it into sections and then fill the sections with doodles. If you like, you can also add color with markers, watercolors, or colored pencils.

      

   7. Lay out strips of washi tape on a smooth surface. Slightly overlap the pieces of tape. Lay out enough to make a rectangle slightly bigger than your template. Trace around the template with a Sharpie pen. Carefully pull the rectangle of tape up and off the smooth surface and then cut out your shape. Stick it down on your backing sheet wherever you like.

      

3. After making lots of different versions of your shape, arrange those that you cut out on your background paper any way you like. When you’re done arranging, glue the cut out shapes down with a glue stick.

   

Points to Ponder:

• Notice how the shape contains and transforms what is within it.