4th Grade Bottle Cap Mural
For the 2nd consecutive year, the fourth grade classes have created a mural that will be on permanent display at our school. This mural is inspired by an Ohio artist named Michelle Stitzlein. Michelle's work includes mostly recycled materials. Keeping with the recycled art theme, the mural was made out of plastic bottle caps. The theme for this mural is bugs. Each class created a 4'x4' panel with one bug on it. The pictures above show each panel as a separate piece as well as an image of what the mural will look like when it is put together. I will post more pictures once the mural is put up over the summer.
14 comments:
This is lovely! I'm glad to have found this blog. You (and your students) did a great job!!!!
WOW. Thats great!
Zach,
Another great mural! Exciting! We had fun working with bottle caps this year, too. Check my blog, bottlecap post coming. Next year, we are planning some other fun units with the caps we have collected. The students loved it!
I am getting ready to do a big series of posts featuring some more of the green art units we did this year - we've been so busy I just haven't had the time to keep up with my blog. Looks like you had a great year too! Thanks for the ongoing inspiration!
Happy Summer!
Katie
I think this is such a great idea! I can't wait to see what they do next year!
Thank you for a great Art Show again this year, it gives our children that extra confidence boost they need.
Good job!
Thanks for all of the positive comments. I'm going to try to get some better photographs put up sometime this week.
I loved this project so much I sent a letter home today asking parents to save their bottle caps over the summer.
Hi Zack,
I had planned a bottle cap project with my students for last year but wasn't successful with it. I had planned to cut flowers from ply wood and have the students draw "eco" symbols with permanent markers on the caps. The problem was attaching the bottle caps to the plywood. I tried different types of glue (the heavy duty stuff like GOOP and SUPER GLUE). Nothing held!! I need the project to be weatherproof as the finished flowers will (hopefully) be placed in the school's butterfly garden. Any suggestions on how to adhere the bottle caps to plywood?
Marion Shrewsbury, MA
Marion,
I haven't ever tried to glue the caps down for permanent placement. The caps end up with screws in them to hold them to the board. When you place them on the plywood, they need to be upside down so the flat surface of the cap is in contact with the wood. The screws do a great job from there. Here is a link to where I get the screws I use-->
http://www.mcfeelys.com/product/KL2-0804/8-18-x-12quot-K-Lath-Self-Drill-Screws
Hopefully that helps you out. Good luck!
-Zach
Did the students come up with the design? Were the boards painted witht he design first? I would like to hear more about the process - and I have sent out the word to save caps too!
The students did have input into the design, but I sketched the final version. The wood was first primed, then the design is drawn on it. The kids painted the boards with some basic colors before the caps were added. Once all of the boards were finished, kids attached the caps. I commented a bit earlier in this string about what kinds of screws I used. I had the kids glue the caps on, then I put screws into them later. I have heard of other teachers that get volunteers to come in to help kids with the electric drills. Let me know if you have any other questions. It's a great project!
love this idea...i'd like to try it! thanks for sharing.
I am a PTA parent in New York, and we are in the middle of creating a bottle cap mural for our school. We are using the screws that were mentioned earlier, and classes are coming in to work with parent volunteers and cordless drills. Michelle Stitzlein visited our school in April to "kick off" the project with a presentation, and she spent the day drilling caps with the students & parent helpers. We are finishing the project on our own. The children, parents, and teachers are all very excited about the project and looking forward to seeing the the finished product hanging in our school!
Michelle is great. She came out to my school the very first time we did a bottle cap mural. We've now finished three!
Here is a link to the latest one--> http://thomaselementaryart.blogspot.com/search/label/bottle%20caps
These are just great. I loved them so much that I had my daughter give it a try. She put them on a few tiles and now it's up to me to install them in the bathroom. Guess it's time to get the fein blades out.
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