I shared this project with children at the OKCMOA for Drop-in Art this weekend and our creations turned out wonderful! We focused on Chihuly: The Collection. The Collection is part of the permanent collection at the OKCMOA. It includes 18 glass installations, several paintings and of course the ever beautiful 55 foot glass tower. With all that inspiration we got started!
I had a last minute change of plans and it's so nice when it works out. I had planned to use string to hang these but my demo wasn't working out so I used wood paint sticks to hold it all together instead.
Here is what we did. Each child gets 5 clear plastic cups. We used acrylic paints to decorate the INSIDE of each cup. Tempera paints do not work very well because they bead up and don't seem to give the best coverage. Craft paints work excellent. You do not need artist grade paint. Just make sure it is a thin layer of paint. Now let your cups dry.
Next we used scissors to cut our cups. We made different cuts but the two most popular were to cut slits around the cup all the way to the bottom of the cup (giving a floral effect when fanned out) and to make spiral cuts.
Next we attach our cups to a paint stick using hot glue. We attached them in all sorts of ways. Remember how we painted the inside of our cups? This gives us that shiny glass look on the outside we are going for and is not as easily rubbed off when handled. When gluing we made sure our shiny sides are up. Here are some of our creations!
You will need:
-5 clear plastic cups for each child (I used Solo)
-Acrylic paint
-Brushes
-Scissors
-Hot glue
-Paint sticks
