If you're like me, then you like toast and art. So why not combine the two? This is a straight forward way to create an amazing and crunchy piece of art. If you're crazy enough try it in your spare time. Even if it doesn't work out, you'll at least have a piece of toast to eat while you think about what you've done.

The learning objectives for this lesson are as follows:
1. students learn how to use value to create an image 2. students demonstrate a proper use of scratch tools 3. students collaborate together to create a class piece. 4. students gain an understanding of basic grid techniques 5. students gain a better understanding of how art can be used within the community.

For something similarly awesome that can also raise money for charities check out http://breadartproject.com/#/home
For more of my students' art check out http://sellsart.blogspot.com

Step 1: Step 1. Decide If You Want to Make Something Cool or Not

If you think you're cool, it's time to live up to it. This may seem slightly complicated at first glance. However it is very simple to do if you can read and follow instructions. You can do it. I believe in you.

Step 2: Pick a Sweet Picture and Grid It.

Your first mission is to find a cool photo either online or one that you've taken and to put a square grid on top of it. Make your grid 1" x1" and try to find a picture that will yield you the amount of squares that you need for your art class. Mine is 6 pieces of toast by 7 which gave me 42 pieces of toast. Each student did 2 of them.

Anyhow, once you find a photo and grid it. Make 2 copies. One copy to slice up and distribute to students and one copy as a reference. Remember to number the squares so you know which goes where when you put the toast in order.

Step 3: Buy Some Bread

Go to your favorite place to buy bread and buy a loaf of bread. I suggest white sandwich bread simply because it's more square than regular bread. Depending on how many students you have, you may need to buy 2 or more loafs. A standard loaf of bread normally has around 22 or so slices.

Step 4: Make It Stale

Next you need to make all your bread stale. Sounds crazy, but if it's not then when you try to scratch it later the bread will simply tear. Nobody wants that. Basically, lay all your bread out on a table somewhere for about 4-5 hours, then flip it for 4-5 more hours. I just left them on a shelf in my storage room and half way through the day I flipped it. The next day my bread was nice and stale.

Step 5: Burn It

Now it's time for the fun part. I recommend you do this step outside. Anyhow, lay your now stale bread on a large piece of wood or something that you can lay the bread out on and light up your torch. Burn one side of the bread pretty good from edge to edge. You'll end up with a whole loaf of completely charred bread. (We'll scratch off the designs later). Just remember to char from edge to edge on one side. Be safe.

Step 6: Scratch It.

Now each student will have 1: a square from your original photo, and 2: a square & charred piece of toast. I normally have my students use old scratch art tools to scratch their design on the toast. I suppose you could use tooth picks or plastic forks to scratch it too. Whatever works.

Step 7: Re-assemble

As your students begin to finish, you can start to re-assemble your photo out of toast. Once piece at a time your toast art will come alive. Sweetness!

Step 8: Show Off Your Work.

Once you have all your pieces of toast complete, you can begin gluing them to a piece of wood. I used a pretty good glob of Liquid nails glue (any hardware store will have this) to glue down each piece. Just like that you have a pretty cool and unique way to honor or "toast" someone.

I did this project with 7th grade students for my school districts MLK day celebration, so it's pretty good for what it is. Also, I highly suggest you photograph each piece of toast individually so you can later assemble a picture version of your toast art. I just printed mine on paper so each piece of toast was roughly 4"x4". That way I had a paper version since I knew the toast version would not last forever. Good luck and happy toasting!!

thanks for looking and check out more of my students' work at http://sellsart.blogspot.com