Silhouettes on Soft Pastel 'Marbled' Paper

I was looking for a different application for soft pastels - and a way to creatively use all the little left over bits and pieces that seem to accumulate at an astonishing rate! On Pinterest I stumbled upon this great lesson from artisan des arts, using a technique I had never seen before - using soft pastels almost like a marbling medium! I'm not really sure how to label this one - it's not exactly marbling, but it's not a painting either. Either way, it's great fun and very effective - these on-line photos really don't do them justice!

Charli B

Libby E

Luka M

Tasman S

Charlize C

Chan N

Jakobe C

Jordan O

Madeleine M

Sascha B

Sophie K

Maddy W

James R-S

Zara B

Juliana K

Hannah Y

Kaiden S

Macy E

Mayah K

Taleeha B

I set up a table with 2 water trays (I used biscuit baking trays), paddle pop sticks and two baskets of old soft pastels (sorted into warm and cool colors).

Everyone gathered around for a demonstration -
1. Shake chalk pastel scrapings onto the surface of a shallow water bath (size of container needs to be just a little bit larger than the paper). Pastels can be scraped directly onto the water using a blunt knife, but to save time I pre-crushed ours into plastic containers with perforated lids. Both methods works equally well.
2. Hold the paper (I used quite a heavier weight 120gsm) in a U shape over the water and lower gently
3. As soon as the paper touches the water, let the sides curl down onto the water surface. This is pretty much the same technique used in traditional paper marbling... by touching the center of the paper first it stops (most) bubbles from forming between the paper and the water. Of course contact is needed for the paper to 'lift' the soft pastel from the water, so wherever there are air bubbles there will be no color.
4. Immediately lift the paper off the water and onto newspaper to dry flat. (It still curls, but once dry can be rolled in the opposite direction to re-flatten).

I set the class up at their desks with drawing materials and a sheet of A4 drawing paper folded into 4 rectangles. We talked about silhouettes, and the importance of creating interesting shapes, as once cut out it will only be seen as a solid shape with no inner detail. We brainstormed objects that would make interesting silhouettes, but other-wise I left their silhouette design completely open. They were asked to work on 4 different ideas, the best of which they would later use in their finished piece.

While they worked on their designs, I rotated students in to take their place the table to create their background.

Students then transferred their favourite design onto black paper, cut them out and glued them onto their backgrounds. For these sorts of projects I use glue pots made from small cylindrical screw-top  plastic bottles and small skewers. I've found this really helps them to remember the 'just a dot, not a lot' rule, as each dip of the skewer only gives them 2 or 3 dots! I put less than a cm of white student PVA glue in each pot which is shared by 3 students. The pots are re-sealed at the end of each lesson (being careful to wipe the rim with a damp cloth so that it doesn't glue itself shut!) and generally last a week (for me, that's 5 lessons) without being topped up (saves a lot of wasted glue). I wash them out at the end of the week, so the pots never become clogged with dried-up glue.

The results of this lesson are just amazing! I love the marbling effect and silhouettes always look so dramatic! Best of all, it's easy and fun to do!