Chihuly Chandelier

 First grade did two mini projects based on Dale Chihuly. Chihuly is probably the most famous glass artist in the world. He actually graduated from Madison for his masters degree. I had the chance to see one of his works during spring break.

 The first part of the project, students colored on coffee filters. When they were finished, I wrapped the coffee filters over a paper tube and then sprayed them with liquid starch. This caused the filters to harden up a bit and to look kind of like flowers. I don't have a picture of it but we used these as flowers along the vine that was put up behind the kids during their spring concert. They focused on using warm and cool colors on these.

​For the second part of the project, each student was given an old transparency. They thought these were so cool. Most had never seen them before and I had to explain what they were used for. Makes me feel old! Students used colored sharpies to create patterns and designs on their transparency. When they were finished, I drew a spiral onto their transparency. Then they had to cut out along the spinal that I had drawn. I collected all of the spiraled transparencies and combined them to make a large chandelier that now hangs in front of our courtyard. It looks beautiful in front of the light!