Spring flowers

You need

1. white drawing paper
2. wasco crayons
3. tempera
4. brushes

Children draw spring flowers with black crayon. The whole sheet should be filled with flowers. Colour the flowers with tempera. Paint the background in a bright spring colour.

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.

Cow's day

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A3 size
2. construction paper for background
3. tempera paint or oilpastels

When the cows are back in the meadows in spring, we should draw them! We look at photographs and paintings of cows. Using the website ‘how to draw a cow’ , children draw a cow in the meadow. Of course with a typical Dutch cloudy sky. Colour the drawing with oilpastels or tempera paint. Tell the kids that the meadow shouldn't be a simple green rectangle. They should use different colours. And: grass is growing up!

It's me in the mirror

You need:

1. digital photo camera
2. white drawing sheets
3. coloured pencils
4. photograph of back of the head, shoulders and stretching arm
5. aluminium foil
6. big mirror on the wall
7. some hand mirrors
8. scissors and glue

If you want to see the back of yourself, you'll need two mirrors. By using a hand mirror you can see the back of your head back in a mirror on the wall.

We're going to practice with the mirrors. Children look at their own backs with two mirrors and will discover they nevertheless can see their front also!

All children get two printed photographs of themselves: one with the back of the head/shoulders/stretched hand with handmirror, and one photograph of their face. The 'back'photo has to be used to copy. Draw yourself at the left of the sheet. Copy the stretched hand as well as you can. After this they draw the background: the bathroom or maybe the bedroom. The hand mirror has to be drawn bigger, because the photograph has to fit!

Aluminium foil has to be glued on the handmirror (shining side up). Cut out the photograph of the face, and glue this on the foil.

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!

Wooden landscape

You need

1. piece of plywood 15 by 15 cm
2. coping saw
3. coloured paper
4. tempera
5. brushes
6. gold marker

An exercise in figure saw.

The students draw on their board from left to right a straight line, a zigzag line and a wavy lijn. These lines have to be sawn. The individual parts are then sanded and painted (possibly decorated with gold marker). Finally glue the parts on a piece of coloured paper: a wooden landscape!

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.

Fruit

You need:

1. wallpaper paste
2. newspaper strips
3. toilet paper or paper towels
4. magazines

From paper mache you can make a nice fruit basket. Start with a wad of newspaper and paste newspaper strips around it. Use enough glue, so the work is so wet that you can make figures out of it. Make the last layer of toilet paper and make it smooth.

Tear small pieces of coloured paper from magazines in the color of your fruit and glue them around. Use different shades within one color.

After drying, paint the fruit with varnish.

Strange birds

Made by students of grade 5

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. tempera paint
3. brushes
4. construction paper for background

The children draw a strange bird, according to their own imagination. Immediately to work with tempera and brushes!

Spring bulbs

Spring bulbs, by students of grade 2

What spring bulbs do you know? Tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. Maybe you know more spring flowers?
 
You need:

1. spring bulbs or pictures of them
2. white drawing paper A4 size
3. crayons
4. wash bowl with water
5. liquid watercolour
6. brushes
7. newspapers
8. coloured paper for background

Draw big flowers and colour them with crayons on a white sheet. When the drawing is finished, place it in the wash bowl. Splash liquid watercolour on the drawing with a brush. The liquid watercolour will run off into the water. Move the sheet, so the colour can spread over the drawing. Because the crayonlines are fat, they will resist the liquid watercolour. Let the drawings dry on a newspaper. Paste the artwork on a coloured background.

Distorting mirror

By a student of grade 6

Everyone has ever seen himself in a distorting mirror. In some mirrors you are very fat, the other just makes you super long and another makes you get a big head! In this art class, the children draw themselves as if they are in front of a disorting mirror. Each drawing has to contain three persons: one in normal size, one as if you are bfore a disorting mirror that makes you thin, and one that makes you very fat.
You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. colour pencils
3. ruler

Uses a number of examples on the board to show how objects change when they are in front of a distorting mirror. A circle or square is getting smaller or wider, but the height stays the same. Ask children to draw some examples on the blackboard.
   

The constant height is very important in this drawing. If children draw themself in front of a disorting mirror, all limbs have to be on the same height as in the usual mirror. The thin figure should not be longer, and the fat one should not be shorter than the middle drawing.
   

Guide the children in dividing their drawing sheet. Thin is 1/6 part of the sheet, normal is 2/6 part of the sheet and fat is 3/6 part. Tell students to start with the normal person. The fat and thin person have to be drawn after this. Colour the drawing with colour pencils.

Portraits of the past

 

Nice sepia portraits can be painted with instant coffee. Ask students to bring pictures from the past from home, or let them search for those photographs in the internet.

Discuss those photograps. How do you know those portraits are from long time ago? Clothes and hair of course, but look also how people were posing and what colours the pictures have.

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. instant coffee
3. saucers
4. brushes
5. jars with water
6. paper towels
7. gold markers
8. brown construction paper
9. glue
10. scissors

Tell the students they're going to paint with instant coffee. Each child gets a saucer with a teaspoon of coffee grains. Those grains are to be dissolved in water on the saucer bit by bit. The less water you use, the darker the colour will be. Let the students practice this on a scratch sheet.

The portrait has to be drawn with coffee and a brush directly on the sheet. There will be no scetching with a pencil. False lines can be removed with a drop of water on the brush. After painting the contour lines of the portrait, it can be coloured with the instant coffee.

Cut a frame out of brown construction paper. Draw decorations with gold marker. Paste the frame on the paiting.

Made by students of grade 6

Blouse of clay

Blouses of clay by students of grade 6

You need:

1. clay
2. clay tools
3. clay boards

Bring a blouse in the classroom and show kids how it has to be folded. Ask children to try it themselves. Look at the folded blouse and discuss what parts of the blouse are still to be seen (collar, buttons, pocket, the folds on the side) and the parts that are hidden now. Give each child a ball of clay. Their task is to make a folded blouse out of one piece of clay. Except the buttons no part may be sticked, everything has to be made out of one ball of clay. Be sure kids scretch their name in a label in the back of the collar. After the baking process, the blouses can be painted with tempera and lacked with vernish.

Self portrait like Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 - 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor. Modigliani's paintings are included in expressionism. He painted nudes and highly stylized portraits. He used stylized shapes and painted long, oval faces with elongated necks and long limbs, allowing the characters express a melancholy mood. The skin is often rusty and all forms are outlined. Eyes, noses and mouths in the faces are not the 'right' place, but still offer a balanced and credible image.
View with the children a number of paintings by Modigliani and discuss the salient features:

• faces are elongated
• faces are often skewed
• use of warm colours
• the shapes are outlined in black

You need:

1. black constructionpaper A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. coloured paper for background

The students get a sheet of black paper and divide it into eight sections. First middle vertically, then horizontally through the middle. Then the horizontal halves have to be halved again. Children have to draw an oval, starting at the middle line to slightly above the center of the top section. The neck lines run to the middle bottom section, and from there the shoulder line is drawn. Eyes have to be drawn higher than "normal" portraits and the mouth lower. In between the nose, which is also longer than usual.

After sketching the pencil lines have to be traced with with black oil pastel. Then everything has to be coloured. Watch the black lines: do not touch them with a different colour, it will get messy! Do the colouring carefully, especially in smaller components like eyes and mouth. If a lighter crayon spots black, clean it in a paper towel. Colour the background until you don't see any black. Paste the work on a matching background.

Made by students of grade 5

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