Remembrance Day Huichol Yarn Painting

Well I hope everyone had an awesome Halloween...we sure did!

Now for the next project...On November 11th we celebrate Remembrance Day in Canada and our art projects center on this theme. The poppy is a symbol of Remembrance Day in Canada and it is our focus for this project.

I initially did this project with Grade 2 several years back and it was a bit difficult for them so I recommend this project for Grade 4 and up.

This project is based on Huichol style yarn painting.

Materials Required:

cardboard

foil

tissue paper in white and black

newspaper

yarn in various shades of red and black

mod podge

tacky glue

black beads (optional)

Gather your materials.

You need 2 pieces of cardboard for this project. One for the background and one for the poppy.

Trace a poppy shape on the cardboard and cut out.

Starting on the outside of one of the petals spread some tacky glue and start laying down the yarn. For this project the tacky glue is the best, it holds down the yarn immediately where the school glue may not stick at first and gets soaked up in the yarn. You could also use mod podge for this.

Continue circling around the petal filling it in. It's best to glue as you go.

When filled in press down with your fingers to make sure it is tacked down well.

Now you can add different shades of yarn in the poppy to add depth.

Here I used some embroidery thread as i didn't have any other red yarn but it was fussy so i don't recommend it. You can also add some black yarn in bits and pieces as well.

I also cut some red felt into skinny strips and used it as well.

For the center I first painted it black and then added some beads but you can fill this is with black yarn, poppy seeds, or even crumpled black tissue.

Let dry.

Take your background piece of cardboard and cover with a piece of foil shiny side up. You can glue or tape it down.

Take some tissue paper in black and white and rip into some small shapes.

Take some newspaper and rip into small pieces as well.

Now I'm using mod podge but you can use acrylic medium or even white glue. Working from one corner add some ripped paper to your background.

If using white glue you only want to apply it where a piece of paper is going...don't coat the whole board or you 'll lose your shiny foil look.

Leave some foil exposed.

Let dry. After you can trim the excess on the sides.

When dry you can glue your poppy into place and that's it. Give it a try.

Now that you have all that Halloween candy save those little candy boxes. You can use them to make a Robot like the project I posted last year or hold on to them for a new project that's coming up....you need at least 24 of them.

We'll see you next time...take care.