Moving around

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. black finepointed markers
3. markers in three different colours
4. black construction paper for background

Movement, that is what this lesson is about. Give each child a rough leaf. Ask some children in your classroom to show different 'frozen' attitudes: running, cheering, catching a ball, kneeling. The other students draw this postures on their rough leaf. Their character has only to consist of a circle (head) and stripes for arms, torso and legs. The goal of this lesson is not to draw good-looking people, but only the attitude. If these droodles are okay, children fill their sheet with moving people. Again: draw simple figures consisting of a circle and scrawled arms and legs. The figures should not overlap, but there should be as much as possible on the drawing sheet. Allow children to draw first with pencil, and if the figures are good, they go over it with a fineliner.

When the sheet is filled up with moving figures, the spots between the people have to be coloured. Use only three different colours feltpens. The spots may not touch each other, there must even be a white border between the faces. Also around the puppets remain white. Keep a white border of about half a cm free all around the whole work. This will look nice on a black background.

Finally paste the picture on a black sheet of paper.

A field full of sunflowers

By student of grade 4

You need:

1. oil pastel crayons
2. coloured ink
3. brushes
4. white drawing paper A4 size
5. green paper for background

See what sunflowers look like. Show photographs of French sunflower fields. Children draw a field full of sunflowers with oilpastels. When finished, the background has to be painted with water colour in green or bluegreen. The oilpastel will resist the watercolour.

Ocean animals

You need

1. white drawing paper A4 format
2. blue markers
3. coloured paper for background

After a class discussion about animals in the ocean (and there are much more than just fish!), children draw an animal of their choice. The animal is drawn largely and has to be kept white (of course there may be in eyes etc.). After this the background has to be filled with lines in different patterns. Use only blue feltpens or markers, to support the ocean effect.

Printing with you hands

With your hands you can make beautiful prints. You need:

1. black tempera
2. glass plate
3. paint roller
4. sheets A4 size in different colours
5. glue and scissors

Put some black paint on a glass plate. Roll the paint well, till the glass is covered. Put your hand in the paint and press firmly. Put your black hand on a sheet of coloured paper and make a print. Make four prints on four different colour sheets. Maybe you have to make even more, because some of them won't succeed. Never mind, choose the best ones after printing! Cut your prints after drying with 1 cm extra around the paint. Stick all prints on different colour paper and you have a beautiful artwork in the style of Andy Warhol!

Newspaper city

By students from 10-11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 size
2. tempera paint
3. newspapers
4. scissors and glue
5. brushes
6. black paper for background

Paint a blue or grey blue sky on a white sheet with clouds in it. Use different colours of blue and grey. Cut some typical city center buildings in various forms out of newspaper. Paste them on a white sheet. In front of the high buildings we see smaller ones (overlap). Outline the buildings with black tempera paint. Paint windows and doors. Paint the sides black; think carefully about which side is really visible. Hang all artworks together to create a long street.

Just like James Rizzi

Houses in the style of James Rizzi, group work, grade 6

James Rizzi was born in 1950 in Brooklyn. He studied art in Florida (Gainesville), where he started experimenting with printing, painting and sculpting. Rizzi’s work often shows his birthplace New York. His paintings look sometimes childishly naive, with the bright colours and brilliant gaiety. In the art press Rizzi is often described as "Urban Primitive Artist '. Rizzi himself says he is influenced by Picasso, Klee and Dubuffet.

Show some paintings of Rizzi and discuss the characteristics:

• bright colours
• no gradations within colours
• evertything is outlined with a black marker
• houses have human faces/characteristics
• the artwork is full and busy
• background is full too

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 size cut lengthwise
2. markers
3. scissors and glue
4. blue cardboard A1 size for background

Students draw a house in Rizzi style, a house with human characteristics like cloths, limbs, eyes etc. It must be a house, that means students must not draw a square human being! This can be done by drawing basic elements of a house in any case, like windows, doors etc.
Colour the house with bright colour markers. Outline the details with black fine marker. Cut the house and outline it with a black marker. Draw things in the air: stars, a moon, globe, hot air balloon, ufo's etc. Look carefully at Rizzi's paintings to discover what he has made.
To make a group work, every student has to draw one house at least. Make a composition of all those houses and paste them on blue cardboard. Start pasting with the second row of houses, so the first row can be pasted overlapping the second one. Be sure you don't paste two houses with the same colours next to eachother.
Paste the stars and ufo's on the background.     

Rizzi houses group work, grade 5