Wednesday, April 24, 2013

4th and 5th Grade Bottle Cap Mural


 Why does it seem like it's been such a long time since I've posted a bottle cap project? It's because it has been a really long time since I've done one! I had wall space picked out in my school last year when I was approached by our  local Dublin branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library to create a piece for them. I thought it sounded like a capital idea. The library had very specific ideas for the content of their mural, so I had students submit sketches. That is as far as it got. Between having a spring quarter student teacher and getting busy with my art show, it just never happened.

I finally got in gear this year. All in all, I decided I liked the idea of doing bottle cap murals every other year. It is such a huge, time consuming project that it just makes more sense not to do it every year. With the new format, I included both 4th and 5th grade students. 

I run this mural as a side project for early finishers at the beginning. After compiling several of the best sketches, I drew out the design on the boards that students had primed. Over the course of a couple of weeks, students paint the background with latex house paint. They then clean up paint edges with a super thick black marker once all of the painting is finished. At that point, the mural is ready for caps. I have each table of students help apply caps using a hot glue gun. When a board is finished, I screw in the caps with these screws. Luckily I had lots of help with the screws this year because my contact at the library recruited her staff to lend a hand.

4 comments:

  1. I still need to screw the mural we made last spring down...why did you choose those screws over others?

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  2. When I first did this project five years ago, I was working from a book about bottle cap art written by a local artist named Michelle Stitzlein (google her if you want) who was one of the first to really start making artwork with bottle caps popular. Those are the screws that she recommended, so that's what I used.

    They are different from regular screws because they are self-tapping. They essentially have a drill on the tip so you don't need to pre-drill holes for the screws.

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  3. What surface did you use to make your mural on?

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  4. I just use plywood sheeting. It's $13 for a 4'x8' sheet at Lowe's.

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