We wish you a merry Xmas

You need:

1. green construction paper, 20 by 20 cm
2. white tempera paint
3. white pencil
4. fine markers in white and black
5. colored markers

Draw staves on the sheet using a white pencil. Make fingerprints for the snowmen: use the tip of your finger for the head, use your thumb for the body. Wait till the paint has dried. Use a black fine marker to draw brooms, branches=arms, stones=eyes+mouth. Draw the carrot = nose with orange marker and draw caps of hats on some of the snowmen.
Finally, draw the text of We wish you a merry Xmas (or another Christmas song) under the staves. 


Source: 50 Xmas things to make and do, Usborne

Silver and white Xmas tree

Made by a student of grade 4

You need:

1. green construction paper
2. silver marker
3. white pencil

Draw the trunk of a tree in the middle of a sheet, starting at the bottom and ending about 2 inches from the top. Color the trunk with silver marker. 

Draw lines from the trunk to the right and left. Don't use a ruler! The lines become shorter to create a triangle.  

Draw Xmas decorations on the branches using a white pencil. 

Colourful Christmas trees

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You need:

1. two drawing sheets A4 size
2. watercolour paint
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. tissue paper
6. scissors
7. glue
8. ruler
9. pencil
10. gold or silver marker
11. white correction marker
12. glitter

Paint a background for the Christmas trees with water paint. Use different colours and let them blend into each other. Use plenty of water for nice bright colours.
Choose three colours of tissue paper. Fold the sheets several times and cut triangles and squares. Take a sheet of drawing paper and make it wet with a brush and water. Lay the pieces of tissue paper on this wet sheet. If the tissue paper is not wet enough, it won't bleed. Then make it wet again with a brush with water. Fill the sheet with these tissue paper parts and leave it to dry. Remove the pieces of tissue paper from the sheet when it is completely dry. The sheet will look like this:

Cut long triangles from the sheet that was coloured with tissue paper. You may use the schedule above (based on A4 size sheet of 21 by 29 cm - half cm will remain on both sides then). You can cut a piece from the bottom of the triangles if you want trees of various heights. Paste these three trees with overlap on the water paint background. Don't paste the trees all at the same height, so you get depth. Cut some smaller triangles from the left overs if you want more trees.
Outline the trees with silver or gold marker. Draw a simple branch structure. Draw the strains with brown pencil or use the metallic pins. Draw snowflakes around and on the trees with a white (correction) marker or use chips from the punch. rond en op de bomen. Paste the artwork on a coloured background. Sprinkle some glitter on the forest floor.

All artwork is made by students of 11-12 years old

Mondriaan cube

You need:

1. white cardboard
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. cutting mat and knife
5. markers
6. glue

After a lesson about the work of Piet Mondriaan, students draw a template of a cube (nice goal for the math lesson!). The surfaces are 8 by 8 cm, the stick edges are 1 cm.

Cut the template with a cutting knife. Use a black fine marker to draw squares at 1/2-1 cm from the edges. Within these squares you draw straight lines to get some rectangles and squares. Color these using Mondriaan colors: red, yellow and blue. Leave some surfaces white.

Fold the stick edges and paste them to get the Mondriaan cube!

Patterned trees collage

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A3 size
2. liquid water color paint
3. brush
4. construction paper in several colors
5. scissors and glue
6. black fine marker

Fold the sheet in two. Paint the upper half blue, the  lower half green. Leave the edges white. 

Cut several shapes from construction paper: ovals, 'clouds', circles.   

Use a fineliner to draw the trunk and fill the shapes with a variety of patterns.  

Paste the shapes on the painted sheet and be sure the shapes overlap each other to suggest depth.

Source: The lost sock.

The very lonely firefly

You need:

1. black construction paper
2. tempera paint
3. brushes
4. gold and silver markers
5. pencils

Book: The very lonely firefly from Eric Carle (also to be found on YouTube)

Students use white tempera to paint two or more jars at the bottom of the black sheet. They mix yellow and blue to paint grass in different shades of green over the jars. Draw fire flies with gold and silver markers and color them with pencils. 

Christmas carpet

Made by a student of grade 6

You need:

1. green, red or black construction paper  25 by 25 cm
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. gold or silver marker
5. red or green marker

Students divide their sheet with ruler and pencil in 25 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 gold/silver or the figure is gold/silver.

Letter doodling

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A3 size
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. black markers
5. colored markers or pencils 

Shot pictures of letter doodling and fonts - new and older ones. 

Discuss the pictures. Letters in those alphabets are a kind of family.  How can you see that? What can you say about the lines? Are they fat, thin, curvy or angular? What do you feel seeing those alphabets?

Draw a grid with your students (a lesson about using rulers is always a struggle!). In this lesson there are 2 inches between the lines and a half inch between the letters.

After drawing their grid, students design their own alphabet and trace them with markers.

Artworkds made by students of grade 5

Groupwork like Joan Miró

Made by students of grade 3/4

Joan Miró's (Spain, 1893-1983) made paintings, sculptures, textile arts and theater. His paintings contain colorful organic shapes in bright colors: red, blue, yellow, green. The colored surfaces are outlined in black and frequently divided with black lines.

Show some of Miró's artwork. What do you see: bright colors, eyes, shapes outlined in black, divided surfases, stars. Talk about the difference between geometric and organic shapes. Talk about lines: straight, angular, rounded. What do you see in Miró's artwork?

The goal for a group of 4 students is: draw alternately lines on the white sheet with a permanent black marker. Make sure those lines look like Miró. Off course lines may cross! Then draw some elements Miró used too: eyes, stars, divided surfaces etc. Color the artwork. Be sure you're working with 4, so consult each other.

Ready? Sign the work with your personal signature in Miró style!

Dali's moustache II

Made by a student of grade 1

You need:

1. colored sheet A4 size
2. black marker
3. white sheet A4 size
4. black crayon
5. scissors and glue 
6. pipe cleaner 

More information about Salvador Dalí, see the lesson High legged elephant in the style of Salvador Dali.

Show some surrealistic artworks of Dali and discuss the surrealistic parts of it.  Show The melting clocks. Discuss the shape of the clocks. What happened to these clocks? Are these clocks that you can hang on the wall? Why not? Why do we call this surreal?
Dali's artwork will surprise you. We see realistic parts, complemented with dreams and fantasy.

Dali was an eccentric man. Show som portraits of Dali and look at all those different ways he wears his moustache.

Students write words about surrealism and Dali with a marker on the colored sheet. Then they draw a portrait of him with crayon on a white sheet. Cut it, paste in on the colored sheet. Puncture two holes under the nose and pull the pipe cleaner through. Shape the moustache in a way that Dali would like!

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.

Weaving like Mondriaan

Made by a student of grade 2

You need:

1. white sheet A4 size
2. colored paper strips in primary colours
3. scissors
4. glue
5. black fineliner 

Fold the white sheet in half.
Cut evenly-spaced slits starting from the folded edge and continuing up to about a half inch from the opposite. Open up the paper.
Take one paper strip and weave it across the slits, going over and under them. Push the strip to the top and start with another one. The second strip should be woven in an opposite pattern as the first one. If the first strip goes over and under across the slits, the second one should go under and over the slits.
Continue weaving until the white sheet is full. Paste the ends of the strips on the white sheet.
Create a frame by pasting the artwork on black construction paper. Draw small patters on the white strips using a fine black marker. 

Happy monsters

You need:

1. drawing sheets A3 size
2. markers
3. tempera paint

Draw happy monsters! Not the scary types, but the nice ones with big eyes. Color with markers, background with tempera. Outline with black marker.

Made by students of grade 6

A day at the beach

Artworks made by students of grade 5

You need:

1. drawing sheet A3 size
2. white drawing sheets
3. tempera paint
4. brushes
5. scissors
6. markers and/or pencils
7. glue
8. pencils

Talk about a day at the beach: things (to do) on the sand, things (to do) in the water and things (to do) in the air. Talk about people standing in the water: they seem to have half legs!

Cover four tables with newspaper and put three containers with paint on it:

• yellow and a little brown besides (beach) + two big brushes
• blue and a little green (seawater) + two big brushes
• blue and white (air) + two big brushes 
• white (surf) + two brushes to stamp

Show how to paint the beach: a lot of yellow on the brush and a little brown for the beach (do not mix!). Do the same with blue and white for the air, and blue with green for the sea. Make wavy motions with the brush to accentuate the water. Finish with a white stamping brush for the surf.

While four students are painting, the others can start with the drawing part of this lesson: draw people and things you see on the beach. Color with markers or color pencils. Cut those little drawings and paste them on the beach, the water or in the air.

Patterned peacock

Artworks made by students of grade 4

You need:

1. drawing sheet 20 by 20 cm
2. color pencils
3. markers
4. colored construction paper
5. glue

Draw a small peacock on the bottom of the white sheet. Draw lines from peacock to the sides and top of the sheet. Color patterns with color pencils or markers or a combination of them. Outline peacock and 'feathers' with a black marker.
Cut the peacock (look at the pictures) and paste it on a colored sheet.

Johooo a dodo!!

Made by Neil, one of my students, who is very interested in the Mauritian dodo's.
He used markers and colour pencils  for this artwork. Thanks Neil!

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

Surrealism with eyes

You need:

1. camera
2. drawing sheet A3 size 
3. aquarelle pencils 
4. markers 
5. brush
6. jar with water 
7. scissors and glue 

Surrealists like Dali painted images in a hyper realistic style accompanied often with unexpected surprising or even shocking additions. Surrealists let their imagination run wild and painted dreams.   

In this lesson students will make a surrealistic artwork with eyes. Paul Miró, the Spanish surrealistic artist, painted often eyes in his work.

Eyes are meant to look with,  but how can we use eyes in our imagination? Maybe you can play soccer with them ... Or they are on the shelves of a refrigerator .... What tot think about a bouquet of eye flowers to give your mother...

Each student invents a surreal situation of which he or she is part of, and draws it. On a separate sheet several eyes have to be drawn, coloured in bright coloures with markers. The teacher takes a picture of the child as it sees itself in that situation and prints it. The drawing has to be coloured with aquarell pencils. Use water and a brush to smoothe the colours. Paste the photograph in the drawing and then paste the eyes. 

All arworks made by students of grade 4. 

High legged elephant like Salvador Dali

A great lesson from colleague blogger of Artisan des Arts.

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. markers (not waterproof)
3. brush
4. jar with water
5. chalk pastels
6. felt
7. scissors and glue 

Show some surrealistic artworks of Dali. Show The elephants. Discuss the realistic (the body of the elephant) and the surrealistic parts (house on the back, high legs) of this work.

Students draw a Dali inspired elephant and trace it with a marker. I gave them some 'how to draw' templates. Take a wet brush and go over the lines, so the water turns into watercolour. Let dry.

Draw a horizon line and a sun. Colour the background with chalk pastels and blend with your fingers. Draw shadows of the elephant's legs. Maybe they don't have the right direction, but that's part of surrealism!

Cut a piece of felt for a blanket, decorate it and paste it on the elephant.

All artworks are made by students of grade 4