One colour city - group work like Alisa Burke

You need:

1. drawing sheet A1 size
2. drawing sheets 10 by 20 cm (A4 size cut in three) 
3. various colouring materials: crayons, oilpastel, colour pencils, watercolour paint, markers, tempera etc. 
4. fine black marker 
5. liquid water colour paint 
6. big brush
7. scissors
8. glue

An artwork I came across on Pinterest from Alisa Burke was the inspirations for this lesson. Show Burke's work and discuss it: all houses in the same colour, windows are white, everything is outlined with black marker, houses uizen hebben één kleur, de ramen zijn wit, alles is zwart omrand, the houses aren't just next to each other but behind each other and (overlap). That means you cannot see the bottom of the houses that are not on the first row. 

Students form groups of four and discuss together the colour they'll choose. One of the students paints the background: use white crayon to draw stars or clouds and then paint the entire sheet with with liquid watercolor. Leave about one inch white along the edges.

On the smaller sheets students draw high houses, with windows and doors and decorations. Colour with the material of you choice. Outline the house and windows with black fineliner and cut it out. Be sure the group draw together about 15 houses.
Lay the painted houses on the large sheet to get a beautiful collage. Note that you do not see undersides of the houses that are not in the front row.

Made by students of grade 5/6

Rollercoaster fun

You need:

1. oil pastels
2. drawing sheet
3. watercolour paint
4. brush
5. jar with water

After a school trip to an amusement park, these drawings were made. The goal was to draw what you liked most in the park and make sure you're part of the drawing.
Coloured with oil pastel and then painted with a brush and watercolour paint.

Made by styudents of grade 4

Salvador Dali's mustache

You need:

1. drawing sheet A3 size
2. oil pastel crayons
3. pencil 
4. black marker 
5. 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 surreliastic parts of it.  Show The melting clocks. Discuss the shape of the clockes. What happened to these clocks? Are these clocks that you can hang on the wall? Why not? Why do we call this surreal?

Using a step by step method, the students draw a face. I opted for the method of WikiHow. Interchange in this method step 1 and 2 by folding the sheet in four parts and then draw an egg shale according to the measures in the figure below. Then continue following the steps on WikiHow.

This is the face of Dali. Draw some melting clocks around it. Draw also some half ones on the edged of the sheet.

The clocks and face have to remain white. Colour the background with warm colors and the clothes of Dali with cold colours (or vice versa).
Outline the clocks and face with black oil pastel. Use a black marker for the numbers and hands of the clock and the parts of the face. Colour the iris of the eyes with a bright colour.

Pierce two holes under the nose and put a piece of pipe cleaner through them. Bend it into a nice mustache. Sign your artwork with your own name. Put the name Dali with a small mustache anywhere at work.

Artworks made by students of grade 4

Thanks to Anne Farell from Use your coloured pencils who gave me the idea of the pipecleaner mustache! 

Catching snowflakes

 

Made by students of grade 4

You need:

1. blue construction paper
2. oilpastel crayons
3. fiberfill 
4. glue 

I don't know who was the first that posted this lesson ...Who do I link? Artsonia, Pinterest? However, it came across all art blogs lately! 

It's snowing! Look up and try to catch snowflakes with you tongue! What does your face look like when you look up?
Draw a child in a cheerful winter sweater. Colour with oil pastels. Outline with black. Paste a piece of fiberfill on the tongue, and do not forget to draw the snowflakes.

(Source: Artsonia/Pinterest)

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.

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.

Half chicken

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. blue liquid water colour
4. brush
5. jar with water

In this lesson students draw one chicken together. Fold a sheet in half and draw a half chicken. Colour with oil pastels. Draw with white oil pastel one or more eggs. Give the sheet folded to a fellow student, and be sure he does not see what was drawn. Tell what there has to be drawn, the head or the body. Mark with two little lines the places where the fellow student has to connect and draw a mark for the hight of the horizon line.

If the second student is ready, they fold up the sheet open. Hilarious!

Paint the whole drawing with blue water colour paint and lots of water. The oil pastels will resist the water and thus the white eggs come forward again.

 

Artworks made by students of grade 3

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!

Snowmen mandala

You need:

1. white drawing sheet 
2. compasses
3. scissors 
4. crayons or oil pastels 
5. indian ink
6. brush

Step 1.
This lesson is a variaton on 'Autumn leaves mandala'. Click the link for full description.

Focus in this lesson: make sure the snowmen are really coloured white with crayons or oil pastels, otherwise they will turn completely black with ink after step 2.

Step 2.

Crumple the picture into a ball. Make flat again. Paint the entire drawing with indian ink. Rinse the ink immediately after it in the sink and let the work dry. The ink will rest in the folds of the paper  and creates a great "antique" effect.

Autumn leaves mandala

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. compasses
3. pencil
4. oil pastels

Draw a circle with a diameter of 20 cm. Draw within about 1 cm another circle (the edge of the mandala). Cut out and fold into 8 pieces. Draw against one of the folds half of an autumn leaf using black oil pastel.

Fold the sheet and press firmly with the hands to get a print of the leaf on the other side of the fold. Trace this half with black oilpastel. Repeat this and draw the other three leaves. Colour the leaves and background with oil pastels in warm colours. Colour the edge with a nice pattern.

Paper batik autumn leaves

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. brown tempera
4. liquid soap
5. brushes

Step 1
Ask students to bring autumn leaves. Outline some of them on the white sheet and draw veins in them. Colour the leaves and background with oilpastels, press heavily.

Step 2.
Wrinkle the sheet into a ball; make sure the picture is on the inside.

Step 3.

Smooth the paper out.

Step 4.

Use brown tempera with a tiny bit of liquid handsoap, and paint over the entire paper.

Step 5.

Then rinse the paper under cool water. The paint sticks in the little crinkle wrinkles giving it that batik look.

Leave the work to dry and press it flat between two books. Paste or staple it on a coloured background.

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. 

Swimmer - like David Hockney

I found this terrific lesson on the blog 'Use your coloured pencils' of Anne Farrell. I used this lesson to tell about artist David Hockney and his swimming pool paintings.

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. coloured paper for background 
3. oil pastels
4. liquid water colour, blue and green
5. brush
6. jar with water

The successful British artist David Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford, England. He studied at the Royal Academy in London. His first works were anecdotal and ironic. In 1964 Hockney moved to California, where he developed a more realistic way of painting. The main themes at this time, are pools, landscapes and portraits.

From 1966 David Hockney increasingly used photographs for his paintings. He made ​​collages containing just photographs. After 1980, Hockney's work became a more expressionistic character. His work shows influences of Picasso Besides paintings, Hockney also makes drawings and etchings. 

Look at artwork of David Hockney, especially those with swimming pools. Discuss with the students how people look like under water - flowing hair, lighter skin. What causes the shimmering
surfaces on the water and what do they look like?

The students draw one or more people in swimsuits and colour them with oil pastels. Use white oil pastel to draw a water pattern in the background, consisting of wavy horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines.
Paint the picture with blue and/or green diluted coloured ink. The swimmers and the white lines will not resist the ink.

Artworks made by students of grade 4

Sunflower batik

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. pencil
4. tempera paint brown or black
5. liquid soap
6. brushes

Draw some sunflowers on the sheet and on the edges. Colour them with oilpastels, press heavily. Wrinkle the sheet into a ball; make sure the picture is on the inside.

Smooth the paper out. Use black or brown tempera with a tiny bit of liquid handsoap, and paint over the entire paper.

Then rinse the paper under cool water. The paint sticks in the little crinkle wrinkles giving it that batik look.

Leave the work to dry and press it flat between two books.

Made by students of grade 4

Sunflowers in five different materials

You need:

1. sunflowers or pictures of them
2. white drawing sheet A1 size, cut in strips of 30 by 65 cm
3. five different colouring materials, like colour pencils, tempera paint, watercolour paint, oil pastels, crayons, coloured ink, aquarell pencils etc.
4. brushes
5. pencil, ruler
6. coloured paper
7. scissors

Look with the students at some sunflowers or pictures of them. How thick is the stem, what can you tell about the leaves, how are the petals divided, what colours do you see in the heart of the flower, etc.

Divide the sheet with thin lines into five strips of 13 cm high. Draw some sunflowers. Make sure the flowers themselves are drawn at the demarcation of the strips. Make sure too that in each compartment at least half a sunflower or leave is drawn.

Choose five different colour materials. Use in every compartment a different material. Consider yourself the order of the materials, for example from bright (markers) to less bright (aquarelle pencils).

Paste the work on a coloured background. Or cut the five compartments and paste them with some space between on a coloured background.

Made by students of grade 5

African adire

Made by a student of grade 4

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. crayons
3. liquid watercolour
4. brush
5. ruler
6. pencil

Yoruba women in Nigeria make a type of resist-dyed cloth that they call adire. They make some adire by folding, tying, and/or stitching cloth with raffia before dyeing. This is called adire oniko, after the word for raffia, iko. They also make another type, adire eleko, by painting or stenciling designs on the cloth with starch. Both types are dyed in indigo, a natural blue dye.

The dye-resistant starch can be either painted freehand or stenciled onto the fabric. When freehand painting, the artist usually paints a grid of squares or rectangles onto the fabric first. Then she fills these squares with geometric and representational motifs.

Stenciled patterns are even more diverse. New motifs, both geometric and representational, are constantly being created. They can include everything from simple shapes to elephants, keys, letters, and skyscrapers. The metal stencils are made by men, who sell them to the female adire artists.

Show some pictures of african adire and discuss them. Show African symbols and talk about their meanings.

Students use pencil and ruler to divide their sheets in squares of 5 by 5 cm. Draw with a yellow or white crayon symbols and/or patterns in these squares. Paint the sheet using coloured ink.

Filled with fruit

Made by a student of grade 3

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. oil pastels

Choose four fruits and draw many of them on the drawing sheet. The fruit should overlap. Colour them with oil pastels and outline with black.

Three spring flowers, three materials

 

Made by students of grade 3

You need:

1. three white drawing sheets 10 by 10 cm
2. coloured origami sheets 12 by 12 cm
3. coloured cardboard 14 by 38 cm
4. tempera paint
5. brushes
6. crayons
7. colour pencils
8. tulips, daffodils, bluebonnets or pictures of them
9. glue

Students scetch three different spring flowers on three sheets of 10 by 10 cm: bluebonnet, tulip and daffodil. Colour the flowers with three different materials: crayons, tempera paint and colour pencils. Paste the drawings on coloured origami sheets and paste them then on coloured cardboard.

Easter eggs with lines

You need:

1. cardboard egg shape 10 cm high
2. pencil
3. white drawing sheet
4. several colour materials, like markers, colour pencils, crayons, chalk pastel 
5. coloured paper 20 by 14 cm
6. gekleurd papier 14 cm hoog, 20 cm breed
7. glue
8. scissors
9. fine black marker 

What kind of lines do we know? Let students draw them on the blackboard: straight - horizontal, vertical, diagonal; angular, like zig-zag and curved lines.
Students have to make four Easter eggs. Ouline the template with a pencil. Draw straight lines in the first egg, curved lines in the second one and zig-zag lines in the third one. The fourth egg may is made with lines of their own choice. Trace the lines with a fine black marker. Colour them with four different materials: colour pencils, markers, chalk pastel and crayons. Cut the eggs and paste them on a coloured sheet.

Made by students of grade 3

Charming chicken

Made by a student of grade 5

You need:

1. blue and yellow construction paper A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. glue

Draw a chicken on blue construction paper, using the tutorial on How to draw a chicken. Make it a charming chicken by colouring it in bright colours. Mix colours to create smooth transitions. Draw a horizon line and colour the ground. Draw somethin on the horizon line, Teken een horizonlijn en kleur de grond. Teken iets op de horizonlijn, for example a fence or a farm. 
Tear the edges of the blue sheet away and paste the chicken on a yellow undersheet. Draw eggs around it.

Made by students of grade 6