We have loved these Sandra Silberzweig portraits so much and last week we came up with an idea to try them on tooling foil! Students colored them with Sharpies, and then we mounted them on black poster board.
Sandra Silberzweig is a contemporary Canadian artist that has been inspiring us for quite some time. We were so excited to do this project with our class one week. Feast your eyes on THESE beauties. I swear these are so fun, I even have some ideas for yet some different materials.
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Loved the project. What type and gauge foil did you use? Where did you order it from?
Thank you!
Thank you Cindi! We use 36 gauge tooling foil – we get it from Dick Blick. We use it for a LOT of projects around here – we just posted a blog about an outdoor event we did where kids made hundreds of little butterflies & dragonflies if you want to check that out! Thanks! ~Jennifer
What did you use for coloring these? Is it a Sharpie? I’m an elementary teacher and we’re not supposed to use Sharpies. If you did use them, do you have a suggestion as to another medium that’d stick to the foil? Great project!
Hi Andrew – yes we used colored sharpies. Dang, that’s too bad you aren’t allowed to use Sharpies in art class, what is the world coming to???? So it would be a totaly different effect but we’ve also done like oil pastel “rubbings” on carved tooling foil. That can add some cool color. They could go over sections with oil pastel and then you could also do an overall top layer with a black oil pastel (lightly) – and that picks up the lines. Do a little test piece to see what I’m talking about. Other than oil pastels, you could get a cool effect with chalk markers which work well on metal but of course those totally rub off… so not sure how great of an option that is for this particular project… Good luck! ~Jennifer
Hi, these are great.
I have a few questions:
1) Did you have them draw it first, or did they go directly to “drawing” on foil?
2) How long did these take? I have about 45 or 50 min/class and hoping these can be done in one class period
3) What did you use for the drawing? Looks like some sort of stylus. I’m planning to use a dull pencil.
4) Did you give them any hand outs for inspiration, or simply show some of her work and have them go for it?
Thans!
Hi Andi – we had them draw straight onto the foil with a wooden stylus. You could have them use a pencil or a skewer – or the back of a paintbrush handle – something like that. We facilitated these by showing and discussing examples of the artist’s work, then we did the first half of the drawing in a very step by step instructed manner – to keep them all at the same pace, and also to get some key lines & shapes down. Then we let them finish them. For an approx size of 6×12″ I’d say the drawing portion takes about 30 minutes. Coloring with sharpies can take a whole other class period. Definitely not a one day project! Have fun!
love your extension on Sandra’s work. I am going to use air drying clay to make a basic face and appendages and dry /oil pastels or paint or watercolour paints ….try different mediums to decorate students choice. discuss effectiveness and solutions ..etc.. another method is to use very thin foam yellowish cushion type from a hardware …thin enough to shape into the basic shape of the face and nose eyes etc and texta in the patterns / or dry pastel. very effective and a fun way to draw. I mount them on cardboard etc to display.