Abstract Composition using Bottle Caps

For the past two weeks in the art room, all grade levels have been working on these beautiful abstract compositions.

This is our first unit of the year using recycled materials, and in this case we were using them as tools. We traced a variety of our collected bottle caps to create the circles in the compositions. We have been collecting the caps for other projects later in the year, but this was a fun way to make art with them in the meantime. To keep the bottle caps clean (so we can use them later), each table shared a Kleenex to wipe the marker off after each tracing. To be green, each table shared ONE Kleenex, and often the same Kleenex was used for multiple classes, until it was so warn out we had to dispose of it. (We made sure everyone knew not to use it for blowing noses or anything like that!)

At clean-up many students had marker on their hands, and many of them wanted to wash it off. To keep from wasting the water and paper towels, I told the students we would not be washing hands. Marker is messy, but not dirty - a distinction the students could understand. Your hands might not look pristine, but they don't really need to be washed (unless you are about to eat.) The students did, however, get a squirt of hand-sanitizer as they left to help get rid of any germs since they were sharing so many materials and handling the bottle caps.

Visit the Briargrove Elementary Art Page to see more examples of the artwork and to learn more about the art concepts incorporated into the unit!