Silly sandwich

You need:

1. drawing sheet 12 by 30 cm


2. colour pencils

Create a super size sandwich, stacked with all your favorite things to eat! The sandwich could be as crazy or realistic as you want them to be, just stack them high!

In the style of Henrique Matos

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size


2. liquid water colour


3. jar with water


4. compasses


5. ruler


6. pencil


7. black waterproof markers

Henrique José Teixeira Matos is a Portugese painter. He is born in 1961 in Oporto.  Matos painted landscapes, portraits and abstract works, but is best known for his op-art work.

Show pictures of Matos's work on Wikimedia Commons. Look especially the op-art works and discuss what you see.



More op-art lessons on this blog can be seen following the link Op-art.



Paint a white sheet of paper with liquid watercolour and a lot of water a plain background.

Drip some liquid water colour on the surface while it is still wet. Use more water if the colours won't flow. Leave the sheet to dry.

Use compasses to draw some small circles (2 cm average) on the sheet. Draw wider circkels around them. Fill the sheet with those circles and half ones near the edges.

Draw lines from the middle of the circles to the edges. Be sure it's an even number of lines and  Kkeep the lines as much as possible equidistant from each other. Color the squares alternating with a black marker or pencil.

By a student of grade 5, coloured with pencil

Sunflowers in five different materials

You need:

1. sunflowers or pictures of them


2. white drawing sheet A1 size, cut in strips of 30 by 65 cm


3. five different colouring materials, like colour pencils, tempera paint, watercolour paint, oil pastels, crayons, coloured ink, aquarell pencils etc.


4. brushes


5. pencil, ruler


6. coloured paper


7. scissors

Look with the students at some sunflowers or pictures of them. How thick is the stem, what can you tell about the leaves, how are the petals divided, what colours do you see in the heart of the flower, etc.

Divide the sheet with thin lines into five strips of 13 cm high. Draw some sunflowers. Make sure the flowers themselves are drawn at the demarcation of the strips. Make sure too that in each compartment at least half a sunflower or leave is drawn.

Choose five different colour materials. Use in every compartment a different material. Consider yourself the order of the materials, for example from bright (markers) to less bright (aquarelle pencils).

Paste the work on a coloured background. Or cut the five compartments and paste them with some space between on a coloured background.

Made by students of grade 5

Portrait of your schoolmate

 

Made by students of grade 5

  

You need:

1. drawing paper A4 size


2. colour pencils


3. watercolour paint


4. brushes


5. coloured ribbed cardboard


6. stapler

After an instruction about proportions of a head, students draw their classmate who is sitting in front of him. The portraits are coloured with colour pencils, the background is painted with watercolour paint. The frames are made from coloured ribbed cardboard strips.

Artist Trading Cards exchange with Australia

Another Artist Trading Cards, this time with Anna Pietrolungo from Essendon North Primary School in Australia.

Contact with a school contact with a school on the other side of the world is so exciting for my students! We searched the school on Google Earth, visited Anna's art blog and the school's website.

Many ohs and ahs when they saw the Australian students wearing school uniforms. That's inconceivable in the Netherlands and it took quite a time to discuss the the pros and cons (although most of my students didn't see any pro at all!).



My students made about 35 cards. Subjects and materials were their own choice. I laminated them and sent them to Australia. Hopefully their cards are almost ready, because we only have two weeks school to go before my students leave us to go to highschool!

MOMA

Made by Debbie, grade 6

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size


2. colour pencils


3. ruler

A lesson about drawing one point perspective.



Students draw a square in the middle of their sheet and draw four lines from the corners to the middle, see schedule. These are the floor and ceiling lines. Draw two lines from both short sides to the middle. Between these two lines the paintings has to be drawn. Draw lines from the bottom to the middle for tiles or parquet.

It's nice to draw artworks that students have made this schoolyear or to choose for artworks of famous painters.

Colour with colour pencils.

The most beautiful peacock

By students of grade 1

You need:

1. white drawing paper


2. coloured cardboard


3. colour pencils


4. scissors


5. split pins

Cut a peacock out of coloured cardboard.

After learning the word 'peacock'  -  in Dutch we call that bird a 'pauw', it's a word that is learned in grade 1 -  every students makes his own feather. Give students a stripe of white drawing paper. Students cut it in the form of a feather and decorate it with colour pencils. Attach the feathers to the peacock with split pins. Of course the new learned word 'peacock' and 'egg' is not missing! 

Three spring flowers, three materials

 

Made by students of grade 3

You need:

1. three white drawing sheets 10 by 10 cm


2. coloured origami sheets 12 by 12 cm


3. coloured cardboard 14 by 38 cm


4. tempera paint


5. brushes


6. crayons


7. colour pencils


8. tulips, daffodils, bluebonnets or pictures of them


9. glue

Students scetch three different spring flowers on three sheets of 10 by 10 cm: bluebonnet, tulip and daffodil. Colour the flowers with three different materials: crayons, tempera paint and colour pencils. Paste the drawings on coloured origami sheets and paste them then on coloured cardboard.

Easter eggs with lines

You need:

1. cardboard egg shape 10 cm high


2. pencil


3. white drawing sheet


4. several colour materials, like markers, colour pencils, crayons, chalk pastel 


5. coloured paper 20 by 14 cm


6. gekleurd papier 14 cm hoog, 20 cm breed


7. glue


8. scissors


9. fine black marker 

What kind of lines do we know? Let students draw them on the blackboard: straight - horizontal, vertical, diagonal; angular, like zig-zag and curved lines.

Students have to make four Easter eggs. Ouline the template with a pencil. Draw straight lines in the first egg, curved lines in the second one and zig-zag lines in the third one. The fourth egg may is made with lines of their own choice. Trace the lines with a fine black marker. Colour them with four different materials: colour pencils, markers, chalk pastel and crayons. Cut the eggs and paste them on a coloured sheet.

Made by students of grade 3

The emperor's new clothes

 

The Emperor's underwear, by students of grade 3

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size


2. colour pencils

The Emperor's New Clothes is a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, first published in 1837 in Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children.



The story is about an emperor, who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire, hires two tailors who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or 'just hopelessly stupid'. The emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him. Then the emperor marches in procession before his people. A child in the crowd calls out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.



Read the fairytale. Tell students they have to draw the emperor. The emporor , who is recognizable by his crown, is almost nude. The only cloth he wears is beautiful underwear. Colour the drawing with colour pencils.  

Fairy tale comic

Hansel and Gretel

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A5 size


2. pencil


3. markers or colour pencils


4. fine black marker

The goal for this lesson is to convert a famous fairy tale into a comic. Students may draw only four pictures, so they should think very carefully about the most important scenes in the story. The story should be obvious from just those four pictures!



Divide the sheet into four sections. Draw four scenes and use speech bubbles if you want to. Colour the drawings with markers or colour pencils. Outline them with a fine black marker. You can choose to colour the drawings completely, but also a black and white strip with a single accent colour is nice.

All artworks are made by students of grade 6

Wild flowers

You need:

1. black construction paper 20 by 8 cm
2. colour pencils
3. tempera paint
4. q-tips
5. saucer

A short lesson with great results!
Draw a lot of flower stems on the black paper with several colours green. Stamp the petals above and between the stems, using tempera and q-tips.

Connected hearts

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A5 size
2. piece of cardboard
3. scissors
4. oil pastels
5. colour pencils
6. watercolour paint
7. jar with water
8. brush
9. coloured paper
10. glue
11. metallic gel pen or marker

Draw a heart on a piece of cardboard and cut it out. Trace the heart several times on the drawing sheet. Hearts should overlap. Trace the heart also on the edged of the sheet. Draw smaller hearts within the traced ones; be sure there is about half cm space between the two lines.

Draw and erase the the pencil lines of the overlapping hearts as if they weave together: below - above - below - above.
Colour the hearts between the double lines with oil pastels. Paint the sheet with diluted watercolour paint and leave the work to dry. Trace the oil pastel harts on both sides with coloured pencils. Paste the artwork on a coloured sheet and finish the hearts on the frame, using a silver metallic gel pen or marker.

Foreshortening fun

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. colour pencils
3. coloured paper for background

Sneakers have beautiful soles; sometimes the soles better than the shoes themselves! This art lesson is about foreshortening, soles and the inside of hands.
Foreshortening occurs when an object appears compressed when seen from a particular viewpoint, and the effect of perspective causes distortion. Foreshortening is a particularly effective artistic device, used to give the impression of three-dimensional volume and create drama in a picture.

Tell students a story about a scary monster. "Imagine a terrible scary monster approaching you. The monster is much bigger than you and is running fast. You are scared and your try to run backwards. This does not work and you fall. The monster leans over you and you try to ward off with your hands .... "

Students draw the bottoms of the shoes on about the half of the drawing sheet. Then they draw their hands, overlapping the tops of the shoes. They drew their head in between the hands, and add their body. The arms need to be drawn directly to the hands, and the legs have to be drawn to the bottoms of the shoes. Students draw details on the shoe bottoms, and lines on their hands.

Use colour pencils to colour the drawing. When finished, paste it on a coloured background.

All artworks are made by students of grade 5

Artist Trading Cards

Some weeks before Christmas, I was contacted by Amy Baldwin, art teacher at St. Pauls Lutheran School in Millington (Michigan). She wrote me she was a fan of my weblog. We emailed for a while, wondering if we could do a little project together. I read about exchanging ATC's on many art blogs, so I proposed to let our students make those little cards for eachother. This seemed to her very nice, so we got started!

Amy's students made ATC's for my students, my Dutch students did the same for hers.
A couple of days before Christmas I sent an envelope filled with 50 ATC's of my 23 students to Millington.

Yesterday we received the big envelope, full of ATC's! How exciting for my students to get those beautiful cards from the other side of the world! They admired the cards and were surprised about the Dutch words on some of them. Thank you very much Amy and thank you all, St. Paul's students!

Owls in the night

You need:

1. blue construction paper 15 by 20 cm
2. white tempera paint
3. piece of cardboard
4. brush
5. saucer
6. paper towel
7. fine black marker
8. yellow pencil

Draw a moon and colour it with yellow pencil. Paint the bottom of the blue sheet white with tempera paint.

Put a paper towel on a saucer. Put a stripe of white tempera paint on the towel. The paper towel will function as a stamp pad. Dip the edge of a piece of cardboard into the white paint and print a trunk. Drag the cardboard a bit to create a thicker trunk. Print several branches. Be sure to leave some space between the branches for the owls.

Use a fingertop and white paint to print the body of the owls. Leave the work to dry.

Draw eyes with a yellow pencil. Outline the eyes with a fine black marker. Draw details like feathers, beak and legs.

Print snow flakes using a q-tip or the end of a brush.

Dutch December skyline

You need:

1. black construction paper 20 by 20 cm
2. chalk pastel
3. coloured pencils
4. white sheet A4 size for stencil

Draw a skyline with roofs of Dutch canal houses on the white sheet. Cut it. Choose a colour to stencil with. Rub chalk on the stencil. Use a tissue or your finger to rub the chalk off the stencil on the black sheet, to create the soft looking skyline.
Turn the stencil and take another colour to repeat this process. Students may also exchange the roof with your neighbour, to get different skylines.
Draw a moon with chalk pastel. Draw windows in the houses and colour them with a yellow and/or white pencil.

Printed leaves

You need:

1. black construction paper A4 size
2. flat dried autumn leaves
3. white tempera and another cool colour
4. brush
5. colour pencils
6. piece of sponge

I found this project on Artsonia. Ask students to take some autumn leaves for this lesson. The leaves should be dried flat, for example in a phone book.

Paint the veined side of a leaf with thick white tempera. Press the leaf on black paper; use a clean sheet to cover the leaf and press on it with flat hand. Do this with several leaves.
Then pick an additional cool colour to blend with the leftover white paint and sponge paint the background. Be sure to leave a little black around each leaf for contrast.



Add some autumn colour to each leaf using coloured pencils.

Treasure map

Made by a student of 11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. strong brewed tea
3. wide, flat brush
4. colour pencils
5. candle

Drawing a treasure map is always exciting! A treasure map is a map that leads to a treasure or secret place. Little drawings tell you what you say on your way, and the road is often indicated by a dotted line. Treasure maps look often crumpled or discoloured, as if they have been well hidden. Students know treasure maps from books and comics. If not, show them some treasure maps on the digital board.

To make the treasure map look old and yellowed, the drawing sheet has to be painted with strong brewed tea. Do this at an earlier time so that the sheets have dried well before the drawing starts.

If the sheet is dry, a map that will lead the seeker to the treasure has to be drawn. Students have to make clarifying little drawings on the map and then colour everything with colour pencils. The treasure map has to contain a compass rose.

A job that is too dangerous for the children themselves to do, but that gives a nice weathered appearance: burning away the edges. Do this, being a teacher, yourself!

To give the treasure map something extra, students can create their own cryptography. This cryptography has to be rolled up and pasted on the map.

Also nice: seal the treasure map using drops candlewax. Press a coin in it, just before the fat has solidified!

Word art

You need:

1. drawing sheet A6 size
2. colour pencils or markers
3. black fine marker

Each student selects a words to illustrate. The design for the word must reflect what the word represents. Someone who doesn't know the meaning of the word, has to understand what it means by looking at the design of it.

Use colour pencils or markers to colour the letters of the word. Use a fine black marker to outline the letters.

Well: although you don't know the meaning of the Dutch words in the examples my students made, you'll know what they mean thanks to the design! If not, they did a bad job?

Made by students of 11-12 years old