Carnival portraits

You need:

1. a shelf
2. balloon
3. newspaper strips
4. wallpaper paste
5. toilet rolls, bottle caps, polystyrene etc.
6. toilet paper or paper towels
7. acrylic paint or tempera paint
8. brushes
9. glitter
10. confetti
11. black marker

Blow the balloon. Paste newspaper strips on the half of the ballon. Be sure you have at least eight layers. Let the work dry. Take the balloon uit. Cut the edges and lay this half balloon on the shelf. Use costless things like toilet rolls, bottle caps or polystyrene to shape the face. Fix these parts with newspaper strips and wallpaper paste. The last layer has to be toilet paper or paper towel. Let the work dry again. Paint the portrait with acrylic paint or undiluted tempera. Give the face a body. Sprinkle glitter or confetti in the wet paint.

This lesson and photographs were sent to me by Ghislaine Aarts.

Winter scene

I got this lesson from Anneriek Adema. Her students (11-12 years old) made this wonderful winter scenes! You need:

1. wc role
2. coloured paper
3. glue
4. scissors
5. polystyrene
6. wire, sticks etc.

The wc role is the basis for a snowman, skiing person, ice skater or something. Use coloured paper to make a person, and place him on a piece of polystyrene. Use different materials to make an environment.

This lesson can also be used to make a group work. Give every group a larger piece of polystyrene and let them discuss about what they are going to make.

Skaters in Dutch landschape

Made by Brittany, 11 years old

You need:

1. light blue construction paper
2. dark transperant glossy paper
3. glue
4. flour
5. colour pencils
6. scissors

Beautiful photographs of Dutch landscapes and skaters on frozen water, are the inspiration for this lesson. There are many of these pictures on the internet (search for 'hollands landschap schaatsen'). Show some of these pictures and discuss them. Take a light blue sheet (or paint one) and paste and paste in the middle transparent dark, glossy paper on it; this is the ice. Cut a circle from a white sheet and paste in on the light blue sheet. Make the white streaks on the ice by drawing lines with a glue stick and sprinkling flour over it; shake the rest of. Draw a windmill or a landscape. Draw some skating people on another sheet and colour them with bright colours. Cut those skaters and paste them on the ice.

Made by students from 10-11 years old

Fireworks over the city

Made by Oscar, 11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing paper A3 size
2. oil pastels
3. liquid water colour
4. brushes
5. coloured paper for background

Children draw a New Years eve in three sections: foreground, middleground and background. At the bottom of the sheet they draw a lot of backs of human heads; these are the people looking to the fireworks. In the middle they draw a street with houses. People are standing in front of those houses, so think about overlapping! The third section is above the houses: beautiful fireworks. Colour everything with oil pastels. Use bright colours for the fireworks, including white. Don't draw too many details, that isn't easy to colour because of the oilpastels. Whey ready, paint the whole drawing with dark liquid watercolour, because new years fireworks are at night! The oil pastels will resist the watercolour.

Christmas carolers

You need:

1. green construction paper A2 size
2. scissors and glue
3. leftovers paper or Christmas scrapbook paper
4. fine marker in black and silver

A Christmas Carol is a book from the English writer Charles Dickens, which tells about an old and bitter mister Scrooge. Scrooge is a banker and money changer whose only goal is to get more and more money. He hates friendship, love and the meaning of Christmas. Just before Christmas he has a number of dreams in which spirits make him change his mind.

Made by kids of 11-12 years old

This art project is about the Christmas carolers; the singers who sing their typical English Christmas songs under the streetlights in cold and snowy villages. Children cut the parts of the singers: head (mouth open, nose up!), legs and arms (thin!), dress or suit, shoes (old fashioned, like lace-up boots) and of course the music book with the title Christmas Carols and some staves. Glue the different parts on a large piece of paper. Paste threedimensional if possible: paste the dress with folds, the arms have to come out of the sleeves and are pasted on the 3D pasted music book. Use a fine marker for the nostrils and a silver one for the shoe laces.

Make a large group work of these Christmas carolers!

Mothers finest

You need:

1. coloured paper A4 size
2. scissors
3. glue
4. leftovers coloured paper
5. leftovers yarn, wire, pipe cleaner
6. buttons, feathers etc..
7. leftovers of cotton

Traditionally, people love to decorate themselves. With what do people decorate themselves? Is this the same in all countries? What kind of decorations can you mention? Discuss decorations and write different kinds of decorations on the blackboard.

Each student gets two coloured sheets of paper; one for the background and one for the face. Fold the sheet for the face lengthwise and draw half a face against the fold. Don't forget the ears! Cut the face and glue it on a background, letting a bit space between face and background. uit en plak het op de achtergrond met een beetje ruimte eronder. So don't glue it flatly. Cut eyes, nose and mouth out of leftover paper and glue them on the face. Decorate the face with different materials. Thing of earrings, glasses, hair, make-up, chain, necktie etc.

(Photographs: Willem Wienholts)

Lines in motion

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 format
2. grey pencil
3. black fineliner
4. coloured markers

A lesson to experience how lines can accentuate a movement. Draw with a pencil four or five figures in motion on the paper. Make them simple, just out of lines and circles. Watch movements with the students by asking one of them to show some movements. Look especially to the limbs. Trace the figures with a black fineliner, leaving the inside of the circles white. Draw lines around the figures with markers in two colours. Try this first on a piece of paper to see how the two colours flow together when reaching eachother. The lines will become more and more smooth, accentuating the motion from the figures. I chose two colours close to eachother. Less spectacular, but less messy also!

Comic strip language

You need:

1. white drawing paper from 10 by 10 centimetres
2. white drawing paper from 30 by 30 centimetres
3. tempera paint
4. felt pens
5. black markers
6. brushes

Comic strip drawers use a special way to reproduce sounds. They realise a special effect with letters or words. We call this an onomatopeia or sound-imitation.

There is always a black frame around the comic strip pictures. Sometimes you'll see the a part of the drawing outside of the frame. Ask sour students to take their favourite comic strips. Look for examples of sound-imitations and talk about them: SPLASH (falling water), TOINK (someone who bumps his head). Those sound-imitations are often combined with a movement or direction. You can notice this if you look at the shape or direction of the letters, or even at the letters themselves. Often you'll see matching symbols around a word, like litte stars for someone who bumped his head or drops of water around the word SPLASH. Students design a comic strip picture with a sound. They have to draw a concept first on the little sheet. When finished and satisfied with the concept, students take a bigger sheet from 30 with 30 centimentres. On this sheet they have to draw a frame (use a ruler!) about 1 centimetre from the sides. Outside this frame the drawing has to remain white, like in comic strips. After this children have to enlarge their concept. If it is to difficult, they can draw a grid on their sheet first (squares from 3 by 3 centimetres). Drawing and words have to be coloured with feltpens. The background and other great parts can be painted with tempera. Tell children to choose bright colours, so don't mix to much. At last outline all lines with a black marker.

Athletes and their shadows

You need:

1. plywood plate on A4 size
2. coping saw
3. sandpaper
4. carbon paper
5. pencil
6. strong glue
7. black construction paper for background
8. tempera and brushes

Search in a newspaper, magazine or on the Internet for a photo of an athlete in motion. Note that, if you would print the photo in black, you'll see well what the athlete does. Place carbon paper with the black side down on your board. Lay the picture above. Trace the athlete. Press firmly. Saw the athlete neat and sand the edges smooth. Paint the two parts in the colours you like. Don't forget the edges! Glue your board on a piece of cardboard and paste the sawn-athletes with some space between. You will see an athlete with his own shadow!

Face in the mirror

You need:

1. coloured construction paper
2. scissors and glue
3. cutter and mat

During this lessons children will practice with positive and negative space. Discuss about a face: form, place of ears and eyes (same height), distance between the eyes, hairline (not just on top of the head), the width of the mouth and nose. Every child gets a construction paper and a half construction paper in two contrasting colours. Draw half of a face to the side of the small sheet. This face must be cut and placed at the center line of the whole sheet. Cut parts out of the half face and place them on the other side. When all parts are cut, everything cn be pasted.

Moving around

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. black finepointed markers
3. markers in three different colours
4. black construction paper for background

Movement, that is what this lesson is about. Give each child a rough leaf. Ask some children in your classroom to show different 'frozen' attitudes: running, cheering, catching a ball, kneeling. The other students draw this postures on their rough leaf. Their character has only to consist of a circle (head) and stripes for arms, torso and legs. The goal of this lesson is not to draw good-looking people, but only the attitude. If these droodles are okay, children fill their sheet with moving people. Again: draw simple figures consisting of a circle and scrawled arms and legs. The figures should not overlap, but there should be as much as possible on the drawing sheet. Allow children to draw first with pencil, and if the figures are good, they go over it with a fineliner.

When the sheet is filled up with moving figures, the spots between the people have to be coloured. Use only three different colours feltpens. The spots may not touch each other, there must even be a white border between the faces. Also around the puppets remain white. Keep a white border of about half a cm free all around the whole work. This will look nice on a black background.

Finally paste the picture on a black sheet of paper.

It's me in the mirror

You need:

1. digital photo camera
2. white drawing sheets
3. coloured pencils
4. photograph of back of the head, shoulders and stretching arm
5. aluminium foil
6. big mirror on the wall
7. some hand mirrors
8. scissors and glue

If you want to see the back of yourself, you'll need two mirrors. By using a hand mirror you can see the back of your head back in a mirror on the wall.

We're going to practice with the mirrors. Children look at their own backs with two mirrors and will discover they nevertheless can see their front also!

All children get two printed photographs of themselves: one with the back of the head/shoulders/stretched hand with handmirror, and one photograph of their face. The 'back'photo has to be used to copy. Draw yourself at the left of the sheet. Copy the stretched hand as well as you can. After this they draw the background: the bathroom or maybe the bedroom. The hand mirror has to be drawn bigger, because the photograph has to fit!

Aluminium foil has to be glued on the handmirror (shining side up). Cut out the photograph of the face, and glue this on the foil.

Distorting mirror

By a student of grade 6

Everyone has ever seen himself in a distorting mirror. In some mirrors you are very fat, the other just makes you super long and another makes you get a big head! In this art class, the children draw themselves as if they are in front of a disorting mirror. Each drawing has to contain three persons: one in normal size, one as if you are bfore a disorting mirror that makes you thin, and one that makes you very fat.
You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. colour pencils
3. ruler

Uses a number of examples on the board to show how objects change when they are in front of a distorting mirror. A circle or square is getting smaller or wider, but the height stays the same. Ask children to draw some examples on the blackboard.
   

The constant height is very important in this drawing. If children draw themself in front of a disorting mirror, all limbs have to be on the same height as in the usual mirror. The thin figure should not be longer, and the fat one should not be shorter than the middle drawing.
   

Guide the children in dividing their drawing sheet. Thin is 1/6 part of the sheet, normal is 2/6 part of the sheet and fat is 3/6 part. Tell students to start with the normal person. The fat and thin person have to be drawn after this. Colour the drawing with colour pencils.

Portraits of the past

 

Nice sepia portraits can be painted with instant coffee. Ask students to bring pictures from the past from home, or let them search for those photographs in the internet.

Discuss those photograps. How do you know those portraits are from long time ago? Clothes and hair of course, but look also how people were posing and what colours the pictures have.

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. instant coffee
3. saucers
4. brushes
5. jars with water
6. paper towels
7. gold markers
8. brown construction paper
9. glue
10. scissors

Tell the students they're going to paint with instant coffee. Each child gets a saucer with a teaspoon of coffee grains. Those grains are to be dissolved in water on the saucer bit by bit. The less water you use, the darker the colour will be. Let the students practice this on a scratch sheet.

The portrait has to be drawn with coffee and a brush directly on the sheet. There will be no scetching with a pencil. False lines can be removed with a drop of water on the brush. After painting the contour lines of the portrait, it can be coloured with the instant coffee.

Cut a frame out of brown construction paper. Draw decorations with gold marker. Paste the frame on the paiting.

Made by students of grade 6

Self portrait like Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884 - 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor. Modigliani's paintings are included in expressionism. He painted nudes and highly stylized portraits. He used stylized shapes and painted long, oval faces with elongated necks and long limbs, allowing the characters express a melancholy mood. The skin is often rusty and all forms are outlined. Eyes, noses and mouths in the faces are not the 'right' place, but still offer a balanced and credible image.
View with the children a number of paintings by Modigliani and discuss the salient features:

• faces are elongated
• faces are often skewed
• use of warm colours
• the shapes are outlined in black

You need:

1. black constructionpaper A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. coloured paper for background

The students get a sheet of black paper and divide it into eight sections. First middle vertically, then horizontally through the middle. Then the horizontal halves have to be halved again. Children have to draw an oval, starting at the middle line to slightly above the center of the top section. The neck lines run to the middle bottom section, and from there the shoulder line is drawn. Eyes have to be drawn higher than "normal" portraits and the mouth lower. In between the nose, which is also longer than usual.

After sketching the pencil lines have to be traced with with black oil pastel. Then everything has to be coloured. Watch the black lines: do not touch them with a different colour, it will get messy! Do the colouring carefully, especially in smaller components like eyes and mouth. If a lighter crayon spots black, clean it in a paper towel. Colour the background until you don't see any black. Paste the work on a matching background.

Made by students of grade 5