Halloween scene

Made by a student of grade 6

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size


2. liquid water colour yellow and orange 


3. brush


4. jar with water


5. black markers


6. black construction paper for backgroud


7. glue or stapler

This lesson is about silhouettes. A silhouette is a shadow, you can only see the outside lines. Show  some silhouettes or shapes made with your hands. Show that sometimes the light comes through openings in the silhouette, so it is not just black.

Make the drawing sheet wet and paint it yellow and orange with liquid water colour to suggest a sunset. Draw a horizon line. Draw a house or a tree, and draw Halloween things around. Colour the silhouettes black and let light where it can. Paste or staple the artwork on a black sheet.

Haunted house in the moonlight

Made by a student of grade 6

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size 


2. black construction paper


3. yellow chalk pastel


4. scissors


5. cutting knife


6. lijm


7. white pencil


8. black marker


9. blue and purple tempera paint


10. sauzer


11. sponge

This lesson is all about Halloween and haunted houses. First make a word web about haunted houses: skeletons, spiders, bats, old, tombstones, dark, scary, etc.



Tear a strip of black paper from about 5 cm and paste it on the bottom of the white sheet: the ground. Draw on black paper ahouse that looks old and cut it out.

Use a cutter for doors and windows. Paste the house on the white sheet. Draw details such as bricks, ghosts, spiders, webs with a white pencil. Use a black marker to draw things in the white window openings.

Cut a circle, the moon, from a scrap of paper and lay it on the work. Outline moon and house with a yellow chalk pastel and smudge the chalk outwards. 

Use a sponge piece to stamp the background with purple and blue tempera paint. Do not get too close to the yellow chalk. Finally paste the artwork on a yellow background sheet.

Which witch is this?

I saw this lesson on Artsonia in several variations.

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. pencil
3. markers
4. white pencil or silver gel pen
5. black paper for background

Start this the lesson with a class discussion about witches. How can you recognize a witch? What things belong to a witch? What can you say about the clothing of a witch?

Students draw with pencil the lower half of the body of a witch: skirt and legs. Around this body they draw things that belong to witches. Draw a horizon line at about 1/3 part from the bottom. The drawing should be coloured with markers. Colour the background with markers or chalk pastel. The latter is obviously faster than colouring the background with markers.

Paste the drawing on a black background and decorate the rim with theme-related little drawings. Use a white pencil or a silver gel pen.

In the debriefing should be clear that you only need a half drawing to recognize a witch: Which witch is this?

Made by students of grade 3

There's a ghost in my bedroom!

Made by Maarten, 11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing paper A5 size
2. indian ink
3. dip pen
4. pencil
5. paper towel
6. black paper for background

Help, there are ghosts in my bedroom! Behind the wardrobe, Achter de kast, under the bed, under the rug.... Sketch your room with a pencil: bed, wardrobe, toys, window, door. Draw ghosts on several places. Trace the drawing with indian ink. Leave the ghosts white, and fill the rest of the drawing in with various textures. Look for a lesson on texture at this link: Exercise in drawing texture. Paste the drawing on a black sheet.

Made by Floor, 11 years old

Happy Halloween

You need:

1. orange construction paper
2. black construction paper
3. black fineliner
4. black marker
5. correction fluid
6. scissors and glue

Children are drawing a Halloween party at night. They work with black marker on orange paper.
Brainstorm what things make you think of Halloween: spiders, skeletons, witchas, bats, black cats, dark, cemetary, pumpkins etc. Vandaag worden alleen contouren getekend. Wat zijn contouren en hoe teken je die?
Every child gets an orange construction paper. Draw the width of a ruler on the top and bottom of the sheet. Draw a halloween party, using markers in various sizes. Use correction fluid to make eyes. Glue a strip of black construction paper on top and bottom of your drawing.

Haunted houses

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. tissue paper in two colours
3. brush and water
4. black markers
5. white chalk pastel
6. hairspray
7. black construction paper for background

Haunted houses…. there are many exciting stories in the internet to start this lesson!
Discuss the characteristics of a haunted house: partly collapsed, on a quiet place, spider webs, torture tools, graves, bats, black cats, ghosts etc.

The background is made with tissuepaper. Kids have to wet their white drawing sheet with a brush and water. Strips of torn tissue paper are put on this - the torn edges must be on the paper, not the straight ones. Make sure the tissue papers overlap a little, so no white paper is to be seen. When ready, wet the whole sheet again. Take a look under one of the tissue strips to see if the bleeding is ready. If so, take of the strips. Then wait till the sheet is completely dry.

With a pencil, kids sketch a haunted house on their coloured sheet. They have to thing about the fact that everything has to be coloured in black, so they have to draw just contours. When sketching is ready, the drawing has to be traced with a black fineliner. Then everything has to be coloured with a black marker. Ghosts are drawn in and around the house using white chalk pastel. Fix the ghosts with hairspray and glue the artwork on a black background.

Made by students of 10-11 years old

Wacky witches

You need:

1. charcoal
2. chalk pastels
3. white drawing paper A4 size
4. black construction paper for background
5. hairspray

How do you recognize a withc? What animals or things do you associate with a witch? What does an angry witch look like? Think of characteristis like mouth, eyes and eyebrows.

Tell children to practice first in drawing with charcoal. Explain how differences in colours have to be made. Tell them to use an eraser to erase the charcoal lines, and a tissue or your fingers to sweep out the colour.

The instruction is: draw an angry witch with charcoal and use a cold colour for the face. Draw the contours of the face first with charcoal. Then colour the face with chalk pastel. After this mouth, eyes and nose can be drawn with charcoal. Finish the drawing with charcoal. Make sure you add some typical witchy things like a cat, a bat, a spiderweb etc.

Ghosts in the air

You need:

1. black construction paper A4 size
2. leftover cardboard
3. scissors
4. white chalk pastel
5. hairspray
6. white pencil

Kids have to cut ghosts and trace the outlines of them with chalk pastels. The ghosts are haunting around a fence.
The fence has to be cut from leftovers cardboard. It doesn't need to be as straight as a line, because it's an old fence, so it is crooked and broken. Then three ghosts have to be cut. The instruction is: one ghost is flying above, one behind and one before the fence.
Children lay the fence and ghosts on the black paper.Then they scratch with white chalk around the cutout parts and wipe it out. Finally they have to cut a moon and do the same.

Draw eyes and a mouht with a white pencil. Fix the work with hairspray.

Positive negative pumpkin faces

You need:

1. black construction paper A4 size
2. orange construction paper A5 size
3. scissors
4. knives and cutting blades
5. glue

Each child gets a black paper and an orange that is half the width of the black. Kids have to divide the black paper in four rectangles by drawing thin lines on the sheet. Than the four rectangles each have to be divided in two rectangles. The orange paper has to be divide in four rectangles, so that each rectangle is as big as a half black one.

Starting on the middle line of the orange rectangle, kids have to to draw half of a pumpkin. Next, one eye and one half of a mouth are drawn. Then the eye and mouth are cut out with a cutting blade.

The half orange pumpkin has to be glued down to the middleline of one of the squares on the black paper. Eye and mouth have to be glued down on the opposite side of the pumpkin.

Pumpkins in moonlight

You need:

1. black constructionpaper A4 format
2. pastel crayons
3. pumpkins or pictures of pumpkins
4. hairspray
5. papertowels
6. construction paper for background

Look with the kids to some brought pumpkins or pictures of them. Discuss shape, texture, size, colours, stem and leaves.
Children have to draw at least two pumpkins, and one of them has to overlap another. Kids have to use pastel crayons on black construction paper. Tell them working with pastels will give a lot of smudge: be careful with smudgy fingers. Wipe them on a towell, and not on your artwork! Tell kids also to mix different colours. This will deepen the colours. Using brightr colours on dark ones will suggest the moonlight!

When the artworks are finished, you have to fix it with hairspray. Glue the work on a green or orange construction paper.

Made by students of 11-12 years old