Butterflies like Peter Callesen

You need:

1. white copypaper (80 grams) A4 size
2. coloured paper for background
3. pencil
4. cutter
5. cutting mat
6. glue

Peter Callesen (born in 1967) is a Danish artists who cuts artworks out of simple white sheets of copypaper. He uses the two-dimensional paper with three-dimensional shapes. This 3D shapes pop up from the sheet of or fall out. He doesn't add anything, just uses the plain sheet. The three-dimensional figures who seem to appear, are made from the same background.

Look at pictures of Callesen's work on his website www.petercallesen.com and discuss them with the students. See especially the work 'Hunting', on which you see a butterfly and a spider popping up from the paper. Discuss how this butterfly is attached to the background. Are there other possibilities for the butterfly to come out of the paper? The body may be stuck, but also part of a wing. By using different ways, you get variety in your work.

Detail: butterfly whose body still stuck.

The children scetch a small number of butterflies on their white sheet. Let them not draw intricate wings, because the animals must be cut out and that is hard enough! put double lines on the places that are not to be cut. Choose different options for the butterflies: let the body be stuck, or the the lower wings.

Cut the paper butterflies carefully. Take care that your specified 'fixed' parts are not to be cut. Paste the work on a coloured background, but do not glue behind the butterfly. Fold the butterfly wings something up, to be sure they are free of the paper and the background is clearly visible.

Made by a student of 11 years old

Flowers in fingerpaint

You need:

1. tempera paint
2. saucers
3. white drawing sheet A2 size cut in three
4. coloured paper for background
5. green crepe paper
6. scissors
7. glue

Give all students a saucer with tempera paint in blue, yellow, red and white. Let them experiment with mixing colours with their fingers. Show them that if they mix to many colours together, they'll get aa kind of brown. Mix blue and yellow to show this makes green. Show them to make colours lighter using white. Children can practice this on a scratch sheet.

Every child gets a strip white drawing paper (A2 size, cut lengthwise in three parts). Fingerpaint your own flower. Realistic or not, it's all right. The only restriction: the stalk and leaves must be green. The flower should be as high as the sheet.

Cut the flower leaving a white edge from about 0,5 cm. Paste all flowers on a coloured background. Cut a strip of grass from crepe paper and paste this in front of the flowers.

Desert

You need:

1. brown construction paper A4 format
2. pastel crayons
3. hairspray
4. wood glue

Look with the students at photographs from deserts and discuss what they look like. What kind of plants do you see? What about the colours?

Sketch with a pencil a simple desert landscape with little details. Cover the lines with wood glue. Try this first on a another sheet. Wait until the glue is dry; it has to be transparant instead of white. Colour your drawing with pastel crayons. Use different colours together and make sure you blend them with your fingers. Fix your drawing with hairspray.

My collection from the sea

Made by a student of grade 6

You need:

1. white drawingpaper A4 size
2. aquarel pencils or watercolour paint
3. brushes and water
4. black paper
5. scissors and glue
6. black fine marker

After summer holiday it's fun to draw what you've found on the beach: shells, starfish, crabs etc. Divide a white sheet in four strips of 7 cm. Draw horizon lines in those strips. Draw several things you may have found on the beach and sketch as lightly as possible. Colour the shells with watercolour paint or aquarel pencils, trying to make shades by diluting the colours more or less. Paint the beach yellow/gold and the air light blue. When dry, outline the shells and horizon with a black fine marker. Cut the four strips and glue them with 1 cm between them on a black piece of paper.

Remembering summer

You need:

1. square drawing sheet 20 x 20 cm
2. colour pencils

Divide the sheet in four squares. Draw in every square your own summer memory! Decorate the edges in four different ways.

Warm sun, cool moon

You need:

1. black paper A4 format
2. pencils
3. gold and silver coloured markers

What colour is the sun? Do you see warm or cold colours? What colour is the moon? And the rays of the moon? How come you see the yellow moon often as cold? How would you use the colours gold and silver in the sun and the moon? All these questions can be asked in a class discussion about the sun and the moon and the differences between them. The children draw a circle on black paper around a saucer or pot. This circle is a face of a sun and a face of a part of the moon. Using warm and cool colours these two parts should me coloured. Met behulp van warme en koude kleuren worden beide helften ingekleurd. The rays of the sun and moon should clearly differ. If the colouring is finished, the parts of the sun should be outlined with gold marker, and the moon with silver marker. The backgrounds from the sun and the moon should be different too.

Sunny faces

You need:

1. white piece of paper 20 by 20 cm
2. brushes
3. watercolour paint
4. jar with water
5. black marker

After talking about warm and cool colours, children have to divide their sheet in four squares. Outline a dish exactly in the middle of the sheet. Draw a sunny face with eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, eyebrows and eyelashes. Don't draw too small, because those parts have to be painted and outlined later.

Use watercolour paint to colour your sunny face. Cool colours for the background, warm colours for the sun. The four parts of the face have to be coloured with different warm colours. The same for the background: use four different cool colours. When the work is dry, outline each part with a black marker. Mark the dividing lines also.

A field full of sunflowers

By student of grade 4

You need:

1. oil pastel crayons
2. coloured ink
3. brushes
4. white drawing paper A4 size
5. green paper for background

See what sunflowers look like. Show photographs of French sunflower fields. Children draw a field full of sunflowers with oilpastels. When finished, the background has to be painted with water colour in green or bluegreen. The oilpastel will resist the watercolour.