Skip to Main Content

Art and Picture Books

Picture Books representing different art mediums, including printimaking, drawing, Oil and acrylic painting, Drawing (chalk, pastel coloured pencils), fabric art, collage and sculpture, crayon etching and crayon resist, mixed media, and digital art. Sampl

Art Activity in Action:

"Fabric Art"

Sample Activity

"Peaceful Pieces : Poems about Quilts About Peace" by Anna Grossnickle Hines

It uses an art technique called "quilting"

Note how the long fabric pieces are offset or shifted up-and-down in long strips (it seems to create movement, or energy, bringing the artwork alive!).

Fabric

  • ​Definition: Cloth, thread, or yarn are used to create a picture
  • Related terms: Embroidery, fabric, quilt, sewing

Instructions For Weaving Your Own Cloth Placemat Artwork

  • Fold a sheet of construction paper in half, "hamburger style." Unfold it. Using portrait orientations, colour two or more hearts on the page, each one inside the other. Refold the paper and mark every 2 cm. across the paper along the folded edge.

       

  • On the top edge, draw a line across the page 2 cm. from the top. From the folded side, make squiggly cuts every 2 cm. making sure not to get the cuts too close to each other. Stop your cutting at the line you drew. You have created your "loom" and your "warp" for your weaving creation:

  • On different coloured construction paper, build your "weft" for your weaving. Again, colour 2 or more hearts, portrait orientation, one inside each other, about the same size as your warp page hearts. Cut straight strips about 2 cm. wide across the page.

  • Weave your weft strips into your warp loom, alternating each row over-under, then under-over. Push each row tight against the row below it. You may want to tape each row on the back to keep them in place.

  • You could laminate your final creation, to make a woven placemat:

  • Your students may comment that their heart weaving does not look much like a heart. This might be a good time to introduce the concept of abstract art, which can be defined as art the breaks away from real views of objects in order to explore forms and colours, and our responses to them. Many websites also suggest some splatter painting be applied to your creation, which is shown below.

"Beating Heart of Love: Abstract Fabric Art" by Bill Glaister

 

 

Check Out These Websites for Other Paper Weaving Activities and Ideas:

Check out these tutorials on YouTube: