Singing in the rain

Artwork made by a student of grade 1

You need:

1. white drawing sheetA2 size
2. crayons
3. liquid watercolour
4. brush

Students draw a person under an umbrella and colour it in with crayons. Then they draw raindrops with white crayon. Paint the entire drawing with liquid watercolour.

Be sure that:

• rain falls from top to bottom;)
• under the umbrella is no rain
• rain is transparent, so we draw with white on white!
• rain forms puddles on the ground

Busy bees

You need:

1. white crayon
2. markers
3. liquid watercolour paint
4. brush

Fold the sheet of paper in half. Draw on both halves a bee. Colour the body with black and yellow marker. Colour the head black, keeping two white dots for eyes. Draw with black marker six legs and two wings. Use white crayon to draw veins in the wings.
Paint the background and the wings with liquid watercolour while keeping the edges white for about one cm.

Made by students of grade 3/4

Source: Artsonia. 

This is ME!!!

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. watercolour paint
3. brushes
4. black marker

A great lesson to start a new year of school! Students draw a self portrait using a black marker and colour it with watercolour paint.

Made by students of grade 1

Suburb for birds

Made by students of grade 4

You need:

1. coloured cardboard 
2. wallpaper 
3. wrapping paper
4. tempera paint
5. black marker
6. brushes
7. scissors and glue

Students draw a birdhouse with a special entrance on brown wrapping paper. This entrance can be a heart, a star of even a bird. Cut this entrance and outline the hole with a black marker.

Paint the house with cheerful colours.

Paste it on a piece of wallpaper and cut it out with 2 cm around. Paste a strip of black paper on the cardboard, this is the standard for birdhouse. Paste the birdhouse on the standard. Outline the house with black marker.

All birdhouses together will make a colourfull suburb for birds!

Thanks to Maureen Kaal 

Snowmen

Made by a student of grade 4

You need:

1. blue construction paper
2. oil pastels

Students draw three or more overlapping snowmen wearing fashionable scarves. Colour with oil pastel and outline with black.

Doodling together - group mural

Made by students of grade 6

 You need:

1. drawing sheets A1 size
2. tape
3. tempera paint
4. brushes

Step 1
Stick some large sheets together with tape and lay them on a group tables of equal height.
Groups of four students at the same time draw little forms or doodles on this sheet using black tempera. The drawings should not touch each other.  When all doodles are finished, have a couple of kids connect them by straight black lines.

Step 2
Paint all surfaces and doodles with tempera. Each student chooses a colour and paints some surfaces or doodles. Be sure to avoid surfaces with the same colour next to each other.

This lesson can be done in every grade by varying subject or colours: choose only primary colours and straight forms to create a  Mondrian version.
Or choose a theme for the doodles, like Christmas, food or sports.

Great success in which variation whatsoever is guaranteed!

The proud artists of grade 6 all together! 

Original idea: Experiments in Art Education.

Spider in coloured web

Made by students of grade 2

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. blackoilpastel
3. autumn leaves
4. liquid water colour in orange and green

Divide the sheet with a black oil pastel in eight parts: two diagonal lines, one vertical and one horizontal. Draw a web between those lines. Draw one or more spiders in the web.

Colour the different parts with liquid water colour in orange and green.

Four season trees

 

You need:

1. four white drawing sheets A6 size (postcard)
2. Q-tips
3. tempera paint
4. coloured corrugated cardboard
5. silver and gold markers
6. fiberfill
7. glue

How can a deciduous tree tell you what season it is? What colours do they have in spring, summer and fall? What does a tree look like in winter?

Discuss these questions at the beginning of this lesson. Write on the board the colors in the spring heard (light green, green, white, pink - blossom), which belong to the summer (green, dark green, yellow) and the autumn colours (brown, orange, red, yellow). And in winter there aren't any leaves. left of course.

 

The students will make a tree for every season. The colours of the leaves have to show what season it is. The log is "painted" with a Q-tip, the leaves have to be may only be spotted. Remember that in fall there are a lot of leaves on the ground! Use fiberfill (snow) for the tree in winter.

 

Paste the trees next to each other on a piece of corrugated cardboard. Design it with gold or silver marker and write the seasons above the trees.  

Organisation:

Give each groep of six students an eggtray with several colours of paint. Give each student a Q-tip to paint the trunk. Per groep een eierdoos met de verschillende kleuren verf. Geef de leerlingen elk een wattenstaafje voor de boomstam.For the dots: one Q-tip per colour for common use.
 

Artworks made by students of grade 3

 

Thanks to Maureen Kaal

Henhouse

Made by students from kindergarten

You need:

1. box
2. brown tempera paint
3. brush
4. paper plate
5. white paper 
6. red paper
7. black marker
8. straw

Paint the outside of the box with brown tempera paint. Fold the plate. Outline your hand and cut it twice out of a white sheet. Paste the hands on both sides of the chicken. Cut a comb and a beak out of red paper and paste them. Paste some feathers for the tail. 
Put the box on its side. Put some straw in the box and put the chicken in it. Stack the boxes of several students for a big hen house!

Winter mittens and cap

Made by a student of grade 2

You need:

1. coloured construction paper
2. markers
3. white sheet
4. glue
5. scissors
6. oil pastel

Students draw a face on a large sheet of white paper and colour it with oil pastels. Be sure the eyes are not on top of the head, but in the middle. The space between the two eyes is as wide as an eye.
From coloured paper students cut mittens and a hat (or trace templates first and cut them). Draw patterns on the hat and mittens with marker. The patterns on both mittens should be similar, as well as the patterns on the hat.
Paste hat and mittens on the drawing. Make sure the thumbs point to each other!

A journey through space

You need:

1. white drawing paper A5 size
2. crayons
3. black paint
4. brush
5. toothpick
6. coloured construction paper

As part of a school project about the Dutch astronaut André Kuipers and his space journey, students scratched these drawings.
Colour the entire drawing sheet with crayons. Choose the colours you want, but don't use black or white. Then Paint the entire sheet black and let dry. Scratch a space scene with a toothpick. Paste the artwork on a coloured background.

All artworks are made by students of grade 3

Stamped polar bears

 

Made by students of grade 1

You need:

1. blue construction paper
2. pencil
3. tempera paint white and black
4. marshmellows
5. brush
6. glitter
7. glue

Show how to draw a polar bear out of simple shapes: circle, half of a circle (ears) and a part of a triangle for the body. Talk about the grey shadow under the head. How do you make gray? Tell students they have to stamp with marshmellows or brushes. Do not paint!

Students draw the head of a polar bear on blue paper. Use white to stamp head and body. Use grey to stamp the shadow. Paint eyes and nose with a small brush. Decorate the artwork with glitter.

Winter scenes

You need:

1. styrofoam
2. pencil
3. block printing ink
4. paint roller
5. flat piece of plexiglass
6. coloured paper

Explain the principle of printing. Why is it that people started to print texts and pictures?

Draw a winter scene with a pencil on the styrofoam. Squeeze out “toothpaste” amount of ink on plexiglass. Roll ink out. The ink is ready when lines appear. Ink should look wet.
Put the styrofoam on a newspaper. Roll one colour ink onto the foam, working quickly to cover all areas. Lay a sheet on top of foam and press with a flat hand. Take away the sheet and your print is ready. Let dry and cut it with about 1 cm around. Paste one or more prints on a white sheet. Decorate the frame with fingerprints.

Made by students of grade 2

Same animal, different colours

Made by a student of grade 1

You need:

1. two white drawing sheets A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. liquid water colour
4. brush
5. jar with water

A lesson about cool and warm colours.

Draw an animal on a white drawing sheet. Be sure it's not too small. Ask the teacher to make a copy of this drawing. Colour the first animal with oil pastels in warm colours, the second one in cool colours. Paint the background with liquid water colour, using warm and cool colours as well.

Paste both drawings below or next to each other on a large white sheet. 

Peaks and valleys

Made by a student of grade 2

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. crayons in bright colours
3. watercolour paint
4. brushes
5. jar with water

Discuss with the students the difference between hills and mountains. When do we call something a mountain, when a hill? What does the top of hills look like? And what about the top of a mountain - this can be a sharp point or eroded and round, depending on the age of the mountain. 

Show students step by step how to draw a landscape with hills and mountains. Start with two wave lines Start with two wavy lines on the bottom of the drawing sheet. Draw diagonal lines down from the lowest points. Draw some high mountain peeks behind the hilss and draw a sun behind the peeks.

Fill the mountains and hills with patterns. Use crayons in bright colours. Each mountain should have its own pattern. Paint the mountains and the sky with watercolour paint. Patterns and lines will resist the watery paint.

Colour theory part one

By students of grade 2

You need:

1. black cardboard 15 by 15 cm
2. coloured paper in yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green
3. scissors
4. glue
5. pencil

Fo the first part of a lesson on colour theory, we repeated primary and secundary colours and showed how to make secundary colours out of primary colours. Students knew those colours, but didn't know the names. Tell them about the complementary colours, the colours that lie opposite each other in the circle, called complementary. Red is opposite green, yellow against purple, blue opposite orange.

The primary colors red, yellow and blue are in a triangle. The same goes for the secondary colours orange, green and purple.

Tell students to cut 6 shapes from the coloured sheets and paste them on black paper as discussed.

Use a pencil to draw triangles in dotted lines between the primary and secondary colours.

Flowers behind fence

Flowers behind fence with fingerprinted flowers, grade 1

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. masking tape
3. scissors
4. tempera paint
5. stencil brushes
6. bubble wrap
7. sponge strips

Create a fence with pieces of masking tape, about 2 cm from the bottom.

 

 

Cut a piece of bubble wrap that is as large as the sheet of drawing paper. Paint it with a thick brush, half blue and half green. Put the drawing sheet on top and rub with the hand, creating a bubble print. Use sponge strips (cut from an ordinary sponge) to stamp steals and leaves.

Use stencil brushes to stamp petals of use your fingers to print them. Stamp/print some flowers under the fence an between the poles of the fence. Leave the work to dry and gently pull off the masking tape.

Flowers behind fence with stamped flowers, grade 2

Group work like Keith Haring

Group work, made by students of grade 3

You need:

1. drawing sheet A1 size 
2. pieces of cardboard 10 by 15 cm
3. pencil
4. scissors
5. glue
6. colour markers
7. permanent black marker 

We worked in groups of five students.
Each student draws a figure on a piece of cardboard in the style of Keith Haring: no details, movement, a figure like in a comic. Cut the figures and trace them several times on the big sheet. Working together is required!

Instructions:
- Do not draw twice the same figure next to each other.

- Vary the position: upright, horizontally, diagonally. Turn the cardboard to get a mirror figure.

- Do not start in the middle, but work from the side and place the figures as close to each other.

- Outline all figures with a permanent black marker.

- Divide the intervening areas into smaller areas by straight lines drawn with black marker.
- Choose one colour per person and colour the areas with these five colours.  

- Put your signature on the work like Keith Haring did!

Painting while listening to classical music

By Marrit (gr. 6, right part) and Luuk (gr. 1, left part)

You need: 

1.  cd's with classical music
2. cd-players
3. drawing sheet A2 size
4. brushes
5. tempera paint
6. jar with water

During a school project about music, students of grade 1 and 6 painted together while listening to classical music. We had five classrooms to work in. In every classroom was a cd-player with classical music: Bolero of Ravel, Four Seasons of Vivaldi, the Carneval of the Animals of Camille Saint-Saëns and two more. On the tables big sheets, paint and brushes.

Every first grader came to the sixth graders and asked a student to work with. Each pair was sent to a classroom where they listened to a piece of classical music. By talking together, 'What do you think of while hearing this?' 'What do you feel?' students had to make a painting. One student on the right side, the other on the left side of the sheet. It wasn't nesessary to make one painting, but they might do it. I was all about interpretation of the music.

Marrit (left, grade 6) and Luuk (grade 1) working together on their fishbowls

Students made great artworks together. Some worked together to make one painting, like the one above: two fishbowls, painted while listening to the Four Seasons - Spring of Vivaldi. It is clear the right bowl is painted by the grade 6 student. Other couples chose to paint tow different interpretations, as you can see below.

A great project, worth to give it a try!

Printed birds

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. two potatoes, middle and small size
3. knife
4. sauzer
5. tempera paint
6. piece of corrugated box cardboard  
7. paper towel
8. fine black marker
9. brush
10. watercolour paint

In 'The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas' I found this great lesson.

Place a paper towel on a saucer and spray a stripe of brown paint on it. Use the side of a piece of corrugated cardboard of about 7 cm to stamp branches.

Cut the medium potato in half and cut this half again. Stamp the bodies of the birds using red tempera.

Cut the half potato in two pieces. Use the quarter to stamp the tails.
Cut the small potato in half and stamp the faces of the birds.
Clean this half potato with a tissue and cut it in two. Stamp the wings.
Paint beaks, eyes and legs. Leave the work to dry. Paint the background with watercolour paint. Outline the birds with a fine black marker.
To make spring art work, you can add leaves by stamping them, cutting them out of green paper, using real dried leaves or .....use Paint shop pro, like I did!