A sewing friend created the most charming luminaries using her sewing machine. I adapted the project for my art students and here are the results. We used brown lunch bags and sketched our designs on in pencil. We discussed how contour drawing is about capturing the edges of images and silhouettes are similar to contour drawings. We also talked about "negative space" and how important it is to a picture. In this project it is very important because it is the space that will light up when we are finished. Sketches were filled in with black acrylic craft paint and allowed to dry. (We used a hair dryer to speed up the process.) The negative space as filled in with a Q-tip dipped in vegetable oil. Note: It is important to have the area to be coated in vegetable oil completely surrounded by paint. It stops the oil from bleeding out into the paper. Don't overdo the vegetable oil. Dabbing the swab on a paper towel before application helps. Battery powered tea lights were used to illuminate our bags.
Here are the bags in the classroom without their glow... (the darker areas are where we put the vegetable oil)
