Marvelous Medusa?

You need:

1. black construction paper A3 size
2. tempera paint in blue, green, black and white
3. brushes
4. jars with water
5. paper towels
6. paper towels and newspapers

Medusa is a woman from Greek mythology. She used to be a beautiful woman. She lived in a country where to her sorrow the sun never shone. Medusa begged goddess Athena to be allowed to move to a sunny region. When this was refused by Athena, Medusa humiliated the goddess. Medusa told everywhere that Athena would not let her go, because otherwise no one would pay attention anymore to the beauty of Athena. In another version of the myth Medusa would have made Athena mad because she kissed Poseidon in Athena's temple. The enraged Athena took revenge by changing Medusa's beautiful hair into a nest of snakes. Atrhena also ensured that everyone who looked at Medusa Medusa would freeze immediately . Finally Medusa is killed and decapitated by Perseus, with help from Athena. From Medusa's blood the winged horse Pegasos and a giant are born. After this Medusa's head is offered by Perseus to Athena. Athena put the head on her shield to freeze her enemies.

This myth is the basis for this drawing lesson: draw Medusa's head with snake hair in cold colours. Every child gets a black sheet and four colours tempera paint: blue, green, black and white. After scetching the head (not too many details) and the snakes, the drawing has to be painted in cool colours. Mixing colours is required. Tell the students how to mix the colours: bright colours are created by mixing a few drops of dark paint into light paint, and not the other way.

All artworks are made by children from 10-11 years old

Beat the wall, like Thierry Noir

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. markers
3. black markers, thin and thick
4. pictures of the artwork of Noir

Thierry Noir was born in 1958 in Lyon, France. He came to Berlin in January 1982, attracted by the music of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, who lived in West Berlin at this time. From April 1984, Thierry Noir and Christophe Bouchet started to paint the Berlin Wall. He is an artist at the East Side Gallery. The object was not to embellish the wall but to demystify it. As the years went by, the paintings took on phenomenal proportions, which were rapidly recognized by the international arts community. The paintings of Thierry Noir became a symbol of new found freedom after the reunification of Germany and the end of the cold war.

Typical of Noir are bright coloured profiles, reduced to an icon with a big nose, thick lips and saucer-like eyes.

The East Side Gallery (see photo) is a 1.3 km long section of the wall near the center of Berlin and probably the largest open air gallery in the world. Here you'll find the work of Thierry Noir. After looking at pictures of the work of Thierry Noir, children have to get heads in the style of Noir. hoofden tekenen in de stijl van Noir: profile heads looking to the right or left. The sheet has to be filled completely. Choose three colours marker. Outline everything with a thick black marker. Colour the remaining white parts with another colour or fill the spaces with a pattern in thin marker.

Selfportrait in popart style

By Milan, 12 years old

You need:

1. drawing paper A4 size
2. picture of the child
3. watercolour paint
4. brushes
5. wallpaper
6. coloured paper for background
7. scissors and glue
8. black marker
   

   Print from photograph, made at Dumpr

Make portraits of the children. Go to http://www.dumpr.net/ and click on 'photo to scetch'. Upload the pictures and print a drawing for every child.

Show some drawings in the classroom. How do you recognize the student? What are the most important parts of the face? What lines are important? Every student gets his own drawing. The trace the most important lines in their drawing using a fine black marker. Do not trace details, because after this they have to trace with thick markers. This means: don't trace hairs, just the contours of them. Don't forget facial lines around the mound or nose. When tracing is ready, students take their drawing and a new drawing sheet to a window (or use lightboxes if you have these). Keep the drawing against the window with the white sheet one it and trace the drawing with a pencil. Go back to the table and look carefully at your own portrait. Is it you? Are the lines well? Are the eyes correct?

Take a thick black marker and trace the pencil drawing. Paint the portrait with watercolour paint. Choose the colours you like; in popart every colour is possible!

Paint a background or choose a wallpaper background and paste your cut portrait on it. Paste a coloured background behind it for strength.

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.

Snowman close ups

Made by Charmaine, 11 years old

You need:

1. grey drawing paper cut in pieces from 15 by 15 cm
2. oil pastels
3. glue
4. scissors
5. coloured cardboard

Children get three pieces of grey drawing paper. They have to draw the same snowmen face or part of the face from different points of view: frontal, of the side, from above, from the bottom, upside down etc. The snowmen must be coloured with oil pastels. Of course the colours of all drawings have to be the same. Outline everything with black oil pastel.
Glue the three snowmen close ups on a matching coloured cardboard.

Snowman close ups, by children of 11-12 years old

In the style of René Magritte

Made by Nikki, 11 years old

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.

Nikki working on her version of Magritte

You need:

1. drawing sheets A3 size
2. brushes and water containers
3. old newspapers
4. tempera paint
5. (black markers)

Show Magritte's work and talk about surrealism. Ask children to tell what they see in those surrealistic paintings. Talk about realism and show realistic paintings. What are the differences between these two styles? How do you recognize surrealistic art? Show the painting The son of man and tell about the covered faces we'll see in a lot of Magritte's paintings.

Made by Kiki, 11 years old

Children sketch a portrait, just like Magritte did. It doesn't have to be someone special, just a person. Instead of an apple, they choose a present-day object to cover the face. This object has to be about as large as a face, so a piano or a coin can't be used! Options: an Ipod, cell phone, candy or something. When sketching is finished, the drawing has to be painted. When necessary, students can outline the covering object with a fineliner.

Made by Jetse, 12 years old

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)

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.

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.

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