Dale Chihuly is a local glass artist. His works have been exhibited around the world and can be seen locally at the Chihuly Glass Garden and Museum adjacent to the Space Needle in Seattle or at the Museum of Glass and Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma.

My daughter did a science project for her first grade class last week, where she showed how colours could be separated using a coffee filter and water.  The class were fascinated, so I had an idea to incorporate their interests into our next art project.

One of Chihuly’s famous series are Macchia.  These look a little like glass bowls, similar in shape to a coffee filter and are made by experimenting with different colour combinations.  I showed the children pictures of Macchia and a short video showing how they are made.

Macchia means spots. I asked the children to decorate a coffee filter using washable  markers, adding a variety of colours and including spots in their design.  I showed them some examples from home, some had white spaces and some had the whole filter filled with colour.

When the designs were finished the children placed them on an upside down plastic cup and secured them with a rubber band.

They were then sprayed with spray starch.  We protected the floor with paper and sprayed each one from a distance so the starch would create a fine mist and the filters wouldn’t get too wet.

This is quite a quick project but the children were keen to make more.  Most children made two or three in a 45 minute lesson.

The designs were left overnight to dry.

The finished designs were mounted onto black card.  These were joined to make a collaborative display but I chose to put each bowl on an individual piece of card so they could take them home.

The finished display.