Japanese Scrolls (Ink Blowing) 4th grade

This project is available on many art room blogs.  It is both my least favorite art technique to date, and my favorite most gorgeous project ever! My room was absolutely covered in ink even though we used art mats, paint shirts and tried to be careful.  Ink blowing is definitely more difficult than it sounds.

The background was colored with chalk and rubbed in with a towel for the first step.  I gave them long paper, 9" x 24" was the size. I put a line of india ink in the middle of their paper.
Blowing the ink with the straw was fun, but it was hard to make the ink lines go where we wanted them to go!

 

After the ink dried we looked at Japanese symbols and drew a few of our favorites in the bottom corner of our paper.  We also looked at cherry blossoms to see how they were different colors on the tree. We also learned how much the Japanese people like cherry blossoms and that there are weather reports to tell everyone how far the blossoms have spread across Japan.  So interesting!

 

Artists were given white and red tempera to mix their own pinks. We also were happy to discover that any "mistake"  ink blotches could be covered with a bunch of cherry blossoms close together. A Q-tip made perfect little petals for the blossoms.

 

Finished scrolls received many compliments and some moms posted photos of their scrolls on social media when the scroll was given as a Mother's Day gift.