Henna hands

 You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. colored sheet
3. Indian ink or fine black marker 
4. glue
5. scissors 
   
   

Henna art is making temporary decorations on the skin using dye from dried henna leaves. Henna decorations are applied during festive occasions in North-African and Asian countries. Used symbols are those of strength, luck, fertility and protection. Patterns and symbols vary per country.  

Trace your hand on a white sheet. Decorate with patterns. Cut oud and stick on a colored sheet. Cut the hand again with an edge of approximately 1/2 cm. 

Design a chips bag

 You need:

1. drawing paper 
2. pencil
3. pictures of chips bags 
4. color pencils
5. black marker 

Look at chips bags and discuss what stands out. 

• the name of the chips is usually at the top of the bag
• the name is large and sometimes in 3D letters 
• bright colors
• taste and weight is on it
• it has an image of one or more chips 
• special features can be on it, like New, Party Pack or Less Fat 

Draw the wavy outlines of a chips bag. Think of a name and flavor for your chips. Draw the name on the bag in large 3D letters. Draw some chips on the front. Write the weight on the bag and some details. 

Color with color pencils or aquarel pencils. Outline letters and details with a fine black marker. 

Thanks to Pascal Cuijpers and his students (Connect College, Echt - NL) for this lesson. 

Pumpkins like Yayoi Kusama

made by a student of grade 4

 You need:

1. black construction paper
2. colored paper
3. black marker
4. black fineliner
5. scissors
6. glue
7. white pencil

Yayoi Kusama (1929) is a Japanese artist. She creates paintings, sculptures and large installations with mirrors and lots of light symbolizing infinity. All her artworks have one thing in common: polka dots. That's why she's affectionately known as 'the princess of polka dots'. 

From an early age Kusama wanted to make art, but her traditional Japanese parents didn't like this. That's why Kusama left for NewYork and joined artists there, including Andy Warhol. 

By adding all-over marks and dots to her paintings, drawings, objects and clothes she feels as if she is making them (and herself) melt into, and become part of, the bigger universe. She said:

‘Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment’.

View and discuss artwork of Kusama. 

• use of large and small polka dots 
• backgrounds are often filled with triangles
• use of bright colors
• her installations suggest infinity

Draw three pumpkins on the colored sheets and cut them. Draw bigger and smaller dots on the segments with markers. Draw triangels on the black sheet with a white pencil - start with a zigzag line. Paste the pumpkins on the black sheet.

Dancing Christmas trees

Made by a student of grade 1

You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. pencil
3. markers
4. chalk pastels

Dancing Christmas trees are Christmas trees who look like them only because of the shape (rectangular) and decorations (balls, garlands and stars)! The trunks are much longer than the  the ordinary trees and because of the curves in them it looks they are dancing.  

Draw with pencil, colour with markers, outline with black marker and colour the background with chalk pastels.

Valentine - like Robert Indiana

Made by a student of grade 2

You need:

1. drawing sheet 20 by 20 cm
2. water colour paint
3. brushes
4. fine black marker

A lesson about the famous LOVE sculpture of Robert Indiana. I used the Dutch word LIEF (meaning Nice, or I like you) 

Fold the sheet in four squares. Draw hearts in each part. Draw fat letters on the foreground. Fill letters and hearts with patterns and paint with water colour paint. Outline with fine black marker. 

Blogwriter in NY!

Colourful city

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. pencil
3. colour markers
4. black fine marker

What kind of lines do you know? Straight, zigzag, wavy, spiral, edgy etc.

Draw on the upper half of the sheet six different lines from left to right. Draw on the lower half a lot of different overlapping  houses. Start with the front row. Be sure to vary in width and heighth and draw several kinds of roofs.

Choose seven colours. Colour the spaces between the six lines each with a different colour. Use the same colours for the houses of the city. Outline everything with a fine black marker.

Made by a students of grade 5

Source: Ecole les Peupliers

Outstanding name

By Vincent, grade 3

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A5 size
2. waterproof black marker
3. colour markers
4. black fine marker

Every year we make a birthday calendar in the classroom. For the calendar of this year, we used this lesson. The drawings were pasted on a coloured sheet with the date of the anniversary of the student.

Write your name in elegant letters with a black waterproof marker on a white sheet. Outline the letters with markers in different colors. Divide the background into pieces, by drawing lines from top to bottom and from left to right. Fill out the individual surfaces with patterns drawn with a black fine marker. Make sure that your name really stands out!

Connected shells

Warm colours, made by Emmy, grade 6

You need:

1. white drawing sheet 20 by 20 cm
2. colour markers
3. fine black marker
4. pencil

Draw a few lines on the sheet to divide the paper into sections. Draw several shells on those lines. Be sure the shells touch eachother. Trace the shells with a fine permanent black marker. Colour the sections between the shells with colour markers in warm or cool colours.

Cool colours, made by Bjorn 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!

Snowglobes

You need:

1. tempera paint
2. light blue and white drawing paper
3. ribbed cardboard
4. black fine marker
5. brushes
6. glitter
7. glue

A snow globe is a glass sphere containing a small scene. If you shake the globe, it will snow in it. In this lesson the snow globe will be drawn. Give the children a sheet of light blue drawing paper. Let them draw a circle by outlining a saucer. In this circle they have to draw a winter (or Christmas) scene. After this it has to be coloured with undiluted tempera paint. When the paint is dry, outline the drawing with a fine black marker.

Cut the circle out and lay it on a white sheet of paper. Outline the circle then cut the white circle with one centimeter extra all around from the paper. Paste the drawing on the white circle. Cut a standard out of ribbed cardboard and paste both parts on another sheet of coloured paper of your choice. Sprinkle a little glitter in small dots of glue in and around the drawing.

Made by students of 10-11 years old

Christmas quilt

By Charmaine, 11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing sheet from 20 by 20 cm
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. finepointed black marker
5. red or green marker
6. black construction paper
7. white marker
8. glue

Children divide their sheet with ruler and pencil in 16 squares from 5 by 5 cm. In each square they draw a Christmas figure: tree, candy, snowman, skates, mitten, sock, candle etc. These figures have to be coloured , just like a checkerboard: alternately the background is red or the figure is red (or green). When ready, outline all figures, details and squares with a black finepointed marker. Paste the drawing on a black sheet and outline it with a white marker.

Ow ow ... owls!

Made by Elaine, 12 years old

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. black markers in different sizes
3. yellow or orange marker
4. liquid watercolour
5. brushes
6. black construction paper
7. photographs of owls

Discuss with the children characteristics from owls and look at some photographs. Owls have large forward-facing eyes and ear-holes, a hawk-like beak, a flat face, and usually a conspicuous circle of feathers - a facial disc - around each eye. Although owls have binocluar vision, their large eyes are fixed in their sockets, as with other birds, and they must turn their entire head to change views.

Owls are far-sighted, and are unable to see anything clearly within a few inches of their eyes. Their far vision, particularly in low light, is exceptionally good. Owls cannot turn their heads completely backwards. They can turn their head 135 degrees in either direction; they can thus look behind their own shoulders, with a total 270 degree field of view.

Some owls have have ear-tufts on the sides of the head. Those ear-tufts are made of feathers and indicate the status: a grown-up, strong healthy owl with a large territory has large ear-tufts. Young, weak, sick or old owls have smaller ear-tufts. Most owls have a mixture of brown, black, white, and gray feathers. These colours provide camouflage, and so the owls can easily hide.

Made by Charmaine, 11 years old

Children sketch an owl on a branch with pencil, considering the characteristics from owls we talked about before. After this, patterns have to be made in the body parts of the owl, with different sizes of black markers. By making different patterns, those body parts must be recognized. Only the eyes and the beak may be coloured yellow or orange, the rest is black or white.

When finished, the background has to be painted with yellow liquid watercolour. Don't touch the black marker lines if you didn't use a waterproof one, because the black ink will run out then. Stay away about a half centimeter from your drawing. Finally paste the artwork on black construction paper.

Owls, made by children of grade 5

The longest line

You need:

1. white drawing sheet 15 by 15 cm
2. black fineliner
3. markers

I found this lesson on Artsonia. Start in a corner and draw ONE line, the longest line: curved, straight, zigzag, with angles etc. The line has to fill the whole sheet and you may not pick up your marker from the sheet! The line may not hit or cross itself. And, the most important: the line has to end at the point it started. So be sure you're back in the beginning in time!

When ready, draw with a pencil three or four geometric shapes on your sheet. Choose three colours marker per shape and colour them. Outline your shapes with the black fineliner.

Greetings from ... Holland!

And this is Holland too ....

You need:

1. white drawing sheet from 20 by 10 cm
2. markers
3. fineliner
4. ruler
5. pencil

Draw a horizon line about 2 cm from the upper edge. Put a dot in the middle of this line, the vanishing point. Draw lines from the bottom and sides towards that vanishing point. Make six lanes or more - this is the highway. Colour the highway with gray marker, leaving out the white stripes. Colour agriculturul fields besides the highway. Colour the sky. Draw a cityscape with high buildings and houses on the horizon and colour them with black and grey markers. Together with the lesson about the bulb fields, we have a nice postcard! Greetings from Holland!

Find it!

Waterpaint with finepointed marker

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. watercolour paint or tempera
3. marker or fineliner

Paint organic shapes on you sheet with different colours. Make sure the whole sheet is full. After drying, take a black fineliner or marker and search for faces, animals or objects in your shapes. Outline them and add details to recognize your object or face!

Tempera with marker

Leaves pattern

You need:

1. white drawing sheet 21 by 25 cm
2. markers

Draw lines around your sheet a half centimeter from the edges. Divide the remaining square in 16 compartments from 5 cm by 6 cm. Draw a leave on construction paper and cut it out. Trace the leave in the 16 rectangles. Draw patterns in the leaves: take a pair for each pattern. Colour them alternately with two colours. Outline all leaves with a black fineliner. Draw a square in two colours around your work.

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.

Take a walk with a line

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. markers
3. fineliner

Start with a thick black marker and draw an interesting line horizontally across the paper. Repeat your line with rainbow colors to show emphasis and repetition. Fill your paper up with interesting line patterns in the background. Use a black fineliner. When ready it seems the coloured line looks like jumping off the page. This could also be a nice group project. Children have to discuss with eachother about the places their lines will come together and continuing the patterns.

A spider and his web

In fall you will find beautiful spider webs in the garden and around the school. Especially when the morning dew is glistening on the wires in the sun, a web seems a work of art. In this lesson the students draw a spider web with a spider, after they first have looked carefully at those webs. How is the web built? How many basic threads do you see? What does a spider look like? How many legs has he? How do they look?

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size cut lengthwise
2. crayons
3. water paint
4. brushes
5. jar with water
6. black finepointed marker or white pencil
7. coloured paper

Draw at the top of a half sheet a web with a white crayon (be sure the point is sharp). One of the base threads have to be drawin in the middle, because the spider will hang out there. Draw a spider with black crayon and connect him with the web by drawing the middle white base thread down. Paint the whole sheet with water paint in a colour you like. Use lots of water. Crayonlines will resist the paint. Let the work and see the dewdrops on the web! Glue the work on a coloured background. Draw the web further on the background, with black fineliner or white pencil.

Hot air balloons

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. markers
3. fineliner
4. watercolour paint
5. brushes
6. coloured paper for background
7. scissors and glue
8. yarn

Look at several photo's of hot air balloons and discuss what they look like: use of colour, shape, size, advertisements. Look at the baskets and discover that, when we look up in the air we' ll see the bottom of the baskets. We also note that hot air balloons look smaller when they're further away.
Students paint their white sheet light blue with watercolour paint, using lots of water. When the sheets are drying, balloons have to be drawn and coloured on another sheet: a big one, a midsize and one or two small ones. After this students have to draw some baskets, with silhouettes of people (use a black fineliner!). Cut the balloons and the baskets.
Paste the painted blue sheet on a background paper. Make a composition of the balloons with one or two overlaps. Use the frame too. Paste balloons and baskets, but do not paste the people. Just bow them a bit, as if they're looking over the edge of the baskets. Glue small pieces of yarn between balloons and baskets. Eventually clouds can be made out of cottonwool.
This is also a nice assignment for the whole class or a group of children.