Mixed Media Daisies - After School Art Class

 Ok I think I am officially in love with mixed media projects!  This was such a fun and easy project for my after school art class students.  And the results were so beautiful!  We had an exhibit of the girl's artwork last week and this seemed to be the project that got the most comments.

Materials used:  12"x12" canvas panels, acrylic paints (blue, green & coral), mod podge, scrapbook paper.

The girls used a small plastic bowl to trace a circle onto their canvas.  I let them choose the location of the flower's center.  Then I had them paint the background with a random mix of blues and greens blending a little as the colors overlapped.  The centers of the flowers were painted coral.  No need to be perfect with the paint because the paper covers most of it.

While the paint dried, the girls selected papers for the flower center and petals.  We made sure the colors were complementary and that there were light and dark papers for some contrast.  Then the fun part...  The girls cut random sized circles out of the papers for the center of the flowers and, for the petals, they tore long strips and made sure that both ends were rounded.  One thing we noticed is that the thicker the paper the harder it was to tear in straight lines.  We had a much easier time of it with thinner papers without texture.  Once they decided on the placement of their petals, they glued the pieces down with mod podge making sure that both sides of the paper were well coated.  Once all the pieces were in place, we sealed the whole canvas with a final coat of mod podge.