Valentine's day (with Jim Dine)

Because of upcoming Valentine's day a lesson about hearts today! Basic colors are red and white (and making pink of these of course).

What do you need? 

• drawing sheet 20 by 20 cm
• cardboard 10 by 10 cm
• pencil and ruler
• scissors and glue
• colored pencils
• markers
• oil pastel crayons
• chalk pastel
• tempera paint + brushes
• different types of colored paper (ribbed cardboard, tissue paper, crepe paper etc.)
• watercolor paint + brushes
• red or pink paper for background

Jim Dine

Jim Dine (Cincinatti, 1935) is a sculptor and popart artist. Hearts, ties and tools are recurrent themes in his art. 

Show his artworks and talk about them. 

Organisation 

Divide the different coloring supplies on several tables. Stimulate students to experiment. How can I make my heart pop up from the paper? Can I combine chalk pastel and oilpastel? What happens when I sprinkle water on tissuepaper? 

Students have to color their hearts and backgrounds by using as many supplies and techniques as possible. They may walk around in the classroom to choose the place with the art supplies of their choice. The only restriction is: are all chairs occupied, choose another supply first. 

What should you do? 

1. Divide the sheet in four sqaures of 10 by 10 cm. 
2. Fold the cardboard, draw a half heart against the fold and cut out. 
3. Trace this heart in the four squares. 
4. Color the hearts with different coloring supplies. 
5. Paste the 4 hearts on a red or pink sheet. 

Works of art made by students of grade 5/6. 

Owls in the tree

You need:

• grey construction paper
• two thick and large white drawing sheets
• brushes
• scissors and glue
• linoleum 12 by12 cm *
• lino knives
• flat piece of glass
• block printing ink
• lino press
• linoleum roller

* or use foam to make the prints.

Before the lesson: 

• Have two students paint a large sheet of thick white paper with brown tempera and accents in yellow and red to create a wood structure. 
• Let them paint another large sheet in warm autumn colours.

This painted sheets can be used by all students for tearing branches and tree trunks and cutting leaves.   

What should you do? 

Lesson one: 

1. Draw an owl on linoleum. 
2. Cut the outlines, wings, eyes, claws and beak. 
3. Decorate with small patterns. 
4. Print the owl several times in two colors and let dry.

Lesson two: 

1. Tear a tree trunk and branches from the brown painted paper. 
2. Cut leaves from the autumn sheet. 
3. When dry: cut the printed owls with a little edge (1 or 2 mm). 
4. Look for a great composition and paste everything on a grey sheet. 

Works of art made by students of grade 7. 

Building sandwiches

  

Texture, balance and variety were elements students concentrated on as they created this collage of a big sandwich! 

 

What do you need?

• colored card board 
• ribbed cardboard
• leftovers of colored paper
• yarn leftovers
• fabric leftovers
• pasta in different shapes
• seeds and/or rice
• scissors and glue

Before: 
Discuss what students like on their sandwich and how to represent this. Examples: yellow paper with holes in it will represent cheese; red yarn can be ketchup and an enrolled piece of pink cotton is a slice of ham.

The artwork should be partly 3D, so do not paste everything just flat; try to work spatial and let things overlap. 

What should you do?

1. Create a table cloth from leftovers of cotton or paper. 
2. Cut a plate and paste it on the table.
3. Cut two parts of a hamburger bun of ribbed cardboard. 
4. Put your favourite toppings on the burger.
5. Complete your burger with  the second piece of ribbed cardboard.

Works of art made in grade 4, 5 and 6. 

Autumn birches

What do you need?

• drawing sheets *
• painters tape in several widths
• liquid watercolor paint in red, green and yellow 
• brushes
• tempera paint  
• stencil brush
• old shopping card/customer card
• saucers and jars

* Choose thick drawing paper, to avoid ripping when you remove the tape . 

Before:

Look at birch trees. What do you see?   

 

• straight white trunks
• horizontal peeling bark
• autumn color leaves: orange, yellow, brown, red

What to do?
Step 1
Place the sheet on the table with the narrow site down. Stick strips of tape from top to bottom. Wide for the trunks, narrower for the branches. Note: branches grow up! 

Step 2

Paint the background in strips with diluted liquid watercolor. Let dry. Peel off the tape carefully. 

Step 3

Put some black tempera paint on a saucer. Dip a customer card in it. Pull this in several places from left to right (or right to left!) to halfway up the trunk to make the black streaks.

Step 4

Spray some warm colors tempera + green on a saucer.  Stamp leaves at the top of the trees using the stencil brush. Do not mix colors, but use several colors at the brush at the same time. 

Step 5

Hang up! 

Works of art made by students of grade 1. 

The vase of Kandinsky

What do you need?

• colored cardboard A3 size
• sponges
• paint rollers 
• strips of ribbed cardboard
• bubble wrap
• tempera paint
• brushes
• scissors  
• glue

Read here about Kandinsky's concentred circles. 

Organisation

Divide this lesson in two moments. For lesson 1 (step 1-4) create four table groups where students can print. Divide students among these four groups. When someone is ready, he can go to the next group. In this way students rotate between the groups. In lesson 2 (step 5) the individual parts are combined into a work of art and students sit in their own place in the classroom.  

Group A: printing with sponges. One sponge per color. Some paper plates with tempera paint and a paint roller on each plate. 

Group B: printing with cardboard. Lay out cardboard strips  about the width of a ruler. Spray s few colors of tempera paint on paper plates. Students smear the head side of the cardboard with a brush, see picture. 

Group C: printing with bubble wrap. Lay out A4 drawing sheets and pieces of bubble wrat. Students roll in the bubble wrap with a paint roller and print it on a sheet. 

Group D: painting concentric circles. Place thick drawing paper, tempera paint and paper plates here. 

What should you do? 

Step 1: Place the cardboard upright in front of you. Stamp approximately 1/3 of the bottom full with a sponge and paint. Don't rub, stamp!  

Step 2: Stamp with the cardboard strips horizontal and vertical stripes above the sponge strips. 

Step 3: Use a paint roller to roll a piece of bubble plastic with tempera paint and print it on a white sheet. Let dry. 

Step 4: Fold a white A4 sheet into 6 squares. Paint 6 different concentric circles in each square like Kandinsky did. Each circle has 3 colors. Let dry.  

Step 5: Cut the circles. Draw a symmetric vase on the back side of the bubble plastic print and cut out. Paste vase and flowers on the colored cardboard. 

Works of art made by students of grade 3.

 

Haunted house in the moonlight

You need:

• white drawing sheet 
• black construction paper
• yellow chalk pastel
• scissors
• cutting knife
• glue
• white pencil
• black marker
• blue and purple tempera paint
• sponge
• saucer

What should you do? 

1. Tear a strip of black paper from about 5 cm and paste it on the bottom of the white sheet: the ground. 
2. Draw an old house on black paper and cut out. Use a cutting knife for doors and windows. 
3. Paste the house on the white sheet. 
4. Draw details with white pencil such as bricks, ghosts, spider webs etc.
5. 
   Draw details in the open windows with a black marker.
6. Cut and paste a moon. 
7. Outline moon and house with yellow chalk pastel and smudge the chalk outwards. 
8. Stamp the background with a sponge and purple and blue paint. 
9. Paste the artwork on a yellow sheet.

Starry Night like Vincent van Gogh

Show during both lessons hVan Gogh's painting Starry Night.  

Tell about Vincent van Gogh. Show Starry Night. Zoom in on the painting with Arts & Culture. 

The artwork students are going to make, will take two lessons.  

You need for the 1st lesson:

1. black construction paper 
2. aluminium foil
3. piece of cardboard or a clay plate
4. painter's tape
5. tempera paint in blue and white 
6. cotton swab
7. brushes
8. plate

Lesson 1

Wrap the cardboard/clay plate with aluminum foil and tape it on the back side. 

Step 1: For each pair of students there is a palette with blue and white paint. Students paint spiral shapes ons the aluminum foil with a brush and / or cotton swabs.

Stap 2: Make a print by placing a black sheet on top of your painting and pressing it.  

Stap 3: Remove the black sheet and let dry. 

 You need for the 2nd lesson:

1. oilpastels in black, grey and purple
2. tempera paint in yellow and white 
3. black construction papier
4. brushes
5. scissors
6. glue
7. plate

Step 4: Draw and color the mountains with oilpastels. Draw the wavy movements in the air. The lines must run parallel to each other and also go in the same direction during a movement.

Show students that you can fade the colors by smearing the oil pastel. This way you can also make the colors darker or lighter.

Step 5: Determine where the large dark cypress should be and cut it out of black paper. (In grade 3 we gave students a shape to trace for the cypress.)

Step 6: Cut houses and glue them on tje painting. Draw lighted windows with oilpastels.  

Step 7: Paint moon and stars with tempera. 

Artworks are made by students of grade 3.

Elements of art: color, line, nuance, texture.

Water lilies on a plate

 

By a student of grade 1

Claude Monet (1840-1926) is considered one of the most important painters of Impressionism. 

 Typical for Impressionists:

• they choose subjects from ordinary life 
• special attention for light and color
• work in the open air
• smooth brushstrokes
• dashes resemble a sketch
• it's about the impression!

Monet had a large garden with a pond and a Japanese bridge in Giverny France. He liked to paint in that garden. His works of water lilies are therefore famous.

Discuss the term impressionism. Show some paintings by Monet and zoom in on a work with water lilies in Arts & Culture. Do students see the characteristics of impressionism in this artwork?

You need:

1. paper plates
2. tempera paint in blue and white 
3. stencil brush
4. white drawing sheet 
5. tissue paper in green an light green 
6. water and sponge
7. tissue paper in pink and yellow
8. mold of a water lily leaf
9. glue
10. scissors

Step 1:

Dab the plate with blue and white.  

Step 2:

Wet the white paper with a sponge. Cut squares from the green tissue paper. Place them on the wet paper and let the bleed. Let dry.

 

Step 3

Remove the tissue paper. Trace the mold of the lilyflower leaf and cut it out.  

Step 4

Fold the tissuepaper for the lily twice diagonally. Cut a flower shape. 

Step 5

Grab the flower shapes in the middle. Crumple them into a flower. Put a drop of glue on the lily leaf and stick the center of the lily on top. Roll a wad of leftover tissue paper and stick it in the center of the flower.

Elements of art: texture, color, space. 

Son of Man - Like Magritte

You need:

1. white drawings sheets A3 size
2. white and blue tempera paint 
3. paper with stone print
4. white round paper
5. camera
6. bowler hat and black coat 
7. brushes
8. small dishes
9. sponges

René Magritte
Rene Magritte is born in 1898 in Belgium. When Magritte is 13 years old, his mother commits suicide. She jumps in the river Samber and is found with her dress covering her face. This image has been suggested as the source of several paintings from Magritte: people hiding their faces with several objects.
In 1924 Magritte became friends with members of a surrealism group in Brussels: André Breton, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. These artists influence Magritte's work. In the end Magritte became famous with surrealistic paintings.
Magritte gave his paintings a realistic effect of surrealism. He painted simple objects, like a shoe, an apple, a pipe or a tree. Magritte took these things out of their ordinary environment and placed them in a special surrounding.
One of Magritte's most famous works is "La Trahison des Images" (The Treachery of Images). This is a very realistic painting from a pipe, with the text: Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe. As Magritte himself commented: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe,' I'd have been lying!"
By putting us constantly on the wrong track, Magritte forces us to think about art. Magritte thought it the task of an artist to place reality in a different context.

Look at the artwork
Discuss the painting The son of man. What do you see? What does the man wear? What's on his head? Why can he see little? Can he see nothing of can he peek at the edge of the apple? What's wrong with his left arm? (his arm appears to bend backwards at the elbow). What do you see at the background? What does the sky look like?

How do you make this artwork?
Take photographs of the students wearing a bowler hat and a dark coat; arms hanging beside the body. Students paint their sheet blue and let it dry. Cut a wall out of stoneprint paper and stick it on the blue sky. Stamp white spots on the artwork using a sponge. Let dry againg. Cut the photo neatly along the edges and paste it on the blue sheet in front of the stoneprint paper. Draw a piece of fruit on the circle sheet and show color transitions, just like real fruit. Paste it on the face.

Both artworks are made by students of grade 1

Picture book illustration

Students of grade 6 made this illustration. After a good study of the original illustration in a Dutch picturebook, they made a list of required materials to use for this artwork. The faces and arms are painted, the clothes and curtains are cut out of fabric, the wallpaper comes from a sample book for wallpaper and the flags are from scraps of paper.

Owls in the moonlight

Background of dilluted water colour paint 

You need:

1. drawing sheet 60 by 25 cm
2. white drawing sheets
3. brown wrapping paper
4. indian ink 
5. liquid water colour paint
6. brushes
7. pieces of styrofoam
8. pencil
9. flat piece of glass
10. paint roller
11. block printing ink
12. chalk pastel
13. saucer

Background of dilluted water colour paint  mixed with a drop indian ink  

Part one:
Put a saucer on the big sheet. This piece of paper remains white; the moon. Paint with highly diluted indian ink or liquid watercolor (also dilute it with water) and a large brush in one direction. Make sure the dish does not move. Paint with big strokes and leave the edges a little white. Let this dry.

Part two:
Divide the class into two groups. Group 1 paints the branch, group 2 is going to print owls.

Branch painting:
Paint with indian ink a branch with side branches on the painted sheet. Remember that a branch becoming thinner towards the end. Do not paint around the moon, but through it. If the branch stands out too little against the gray background, outline the branches later with white chalk for a better contrast.

Printing the owls:
Group 2 will start with the owls. Give each student two pieces of styrofoam. Students have to press two different owls in the foam. Put some blockprint paint on a glass plate. Roll the paint on the piece of foam. Then place a sheet (remember to write names on each sheet!) and rub with flat hand over it. Pull off the paper. Create several prints in different colors and on different kinds of paper. In this lesson we used white paper and brown wrapping paper.

A student who has finished printing, takes place on the painting table and paints his branch. Students who have completed the branch, follow up with printing.

Next day:
When the owls are dry (with block print this takes at least a day), they have to be cut leaving one millimeter space around. Use yellow chalk to draw a circle around the moon. Paste the owls on the branches.

Background of dilluted indian ink, branches outlined with white chalk pastel 

All artworks are made by students of grade 4