Overtaken!

We've been working on these for a MONTH.  A MONTH.  That's like, YEARS in an elementary art classroom.  I'd decided to have one class start while the others worked on their Andy Warhol inspired pieces, which worked well until those two classes were done and then I had three classes working on these large letters (which is about 75-80 students).  My room is TINY, so there's a lot of shifting going on to find room for drying.  FINALLY, my first group finished and took them home today.  

We started with plaster in the first group and papier mache with the remaining two classes (I ran out of the plaster).

This is a great "in process" photo where you can see
the letters stuffed with crumpled up newspaper
around the paper drinking cups we taped inside
to give them a uniform thickness.

The papier mache gives them more control
(assuming they're focused and
have some experience with papier mache.)

The plaster group started (and finished) first.  After the plaster was dry, we brainstormed images that are popular for them.  If you want, you can use the Smart Notebook file we brainstormed together, and you can get it here (it's the one that says Pop Culture Initials).  They used pencil to draw their images on their dry plaster initials, then used acrylic paint to add color.  I tried steering them mostly to primary colors . . . but you know how that goes sometimes.  

Today they added detail with permanent marker:

And took them home!!! The room already feels bigger, even with 50-55 in process alphabet letters still here.