Prisoners in World War II

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. ribbed cardboard
3. pencil
4. watercolour paint
5. brushes
6. jar with water
7. black wool 
8. glue

In Holland we rembember the victims of World War II on the 4th of May. The 5th of May we celebrate the day of liberation. In schools World War II is an important part of the history lessons. Students are always very interested in this topic.

"We had to draw one or more people in a concentration camp. Our drawings should show the fear and powerlessness of the prisoners. Most of all did well and the artworks were really beautiful. When the drawing was finished, we had to paint it with watercolour paint, using sad colours. We used black wool to make barbed wire and pasted it in front of the drawing. Finally we pasted the artworks on ribbed cardboard. It was an intense task, and it made us really think about that terrible time."

Artworks are made by students of grade 6

Thanks to Sylvia Versteeg

Painting without using your hands

 

You need: 

1. big drawing sheets
2. brushes
3. tempera paint
4. liquid water color paint
5. tape

Painting without using your hands is quite a challenge! You can paint with your feet or mouth. We tried both. 

Painting with your feet
Put tables aside, newspapers on the floor and stick drawing sheets on top. Very important: take off the shoes in the hallway and leave them there 😀

Place a container with three colors tempera paint between two students. A beautiful portrait is too much, so ask them to paint simple lines or shapes. 

Painting with your mouth 
This is less difficult. Cover the tables with newspapers. Place jars with diluted water color paint and brushes. Students may paint what the want. You may also give them a simple goal: paint rectangles in different colors. 

April showers will bring us flowers

You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. water colour paint
3. ruler
4. white crayon or oil pastel
5. paint brush
6. water

Characteristicly Dutch weather in spring is a weather type with showers, alternated with sunny periods. We call those typical spring showers 'Maartse buien' (March Showers), while English meteorologists speak about 'April showers who bring us flowers'. 

In this lesson children draw spring flowers (tulips, daffodils etc.) during a rain shower.

 
Sketch some spring flowers on a white sheet. Make sure your lines are extremely thin. Use your ruler to draw white crayon lines with one centimeter between them. Make sure your crayon has a sharp point. Paint your drawing with watercolour paint. Use a lot of water to make bright colours. The crayon will resist the water paint, so your shower will be very clear!

Patchwork landscape

by a student of grade 4

 You need:

1. white drawing sheets
2. water color paint
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. crayons

Steps:

1.  Put the sheet in width for you.
2.  Draw a wavy line on 2/3 of the bottom using a crayon.
3. Divide this area in 12 of 15 surfaces by drawing 2 horizontal and 3 o4 r vertical lines. 
4. Draw with a crayon house and trees on the horizon line.
5. Draw patterns in the surfaces.
6. Paint the surfaces in differtent colors.  
7. Paint house, trees and  air. 

With this lesson you can also practice one-point perspective. Place a dot in the middle from the top of the sheet and draw vertical lines towards this dot. 

bij a student of grade 4

Robots rule

 You need:

1. drawing sheets
2. pencil
3. markers
4. water color paint
5. brush 
6. jar with water
7. chalk pastels 

Draw a robot. Trace all pencil lines with a black marker. Color the drawing with markers, except the parts that should become metallic look. 

Paint the body of the robot grey (metallic) with water color paint. 

Let dry and color the background with chalk pastels. 

by students of grade 3

Autumn birches

You need: 

1. drawing sheets A3 size
2. painters tape in several widths
3. liquid watercolor paint in red, green and yellow in rood, geel en groen
4. brushes
5. tempera paint  
6. stipple brush
7. old shopping card/customer card
8. saucers
9. jars

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

Look at birch trees. What do you see?   

 

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

What to do?

Step 1
Palce 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 and not down. 

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 your customer card in the paint. 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 som warm colors tempera + green on a saucer.  Stipple leaves at the top of the trees using the stipple brush. Do not mix the colors, but use several colors at the brush at the same time.  

Step 5

Hang up! 

Artworks are made by students of grade 1. 

One pumpkin, four materials

 

You need:

1. drawing sheet
2. color pencils
3. watercolor paint
4. oilpastels
5. soft pastels

Fold the sheet in four. Draw 4 pumpkins. Color them with different materials. 

3D winter or Christmas scene

made by students of grade 5/6

You need: 

1. white cardboard 21 by 21 cm
2. colored glace paper 14,5 by 14,5 cm
3. cutting knife 
4. cutting mat
5. glue

Too difficult or not enough time? Skip step 1 and 2. 

Step 1
Draw a square at 2 cm from the edges, this is the outside of the frame. 

Step 2
Draw in this square another square at 3 cm of the edges: this is the front of the frame.  

Step 3
Draw in the 15 by 15 cm square a simple winter or Christmas scene.  Make the lines 1 cm wide and make sure they are on 4 sides attached to the 1 cm wide frame. See pattern below. 

Step 4
Color the parts you have to cut out grey.  

Step 5
Cut out the grey parts. 

Step 6
Cut the corners diagonally, see pattern. 

Step 7
Fold the lines of the 15 by 15 square. 

Step 8
Stick the corners.

Step 9

Stick the glace paper in the frame. 

Elements of art: line, form, space.

 

Winter tree in warm-cool colors

 You need:

1. drawing sheets 25 x 32,5 cm
2. crayons
3. watercolor paint
4. black tempera 
5. brushes
6. jar with water

With crayon: draw a horizonline and a tree trunk from the bottom of the sheet. Draw branches that touch the edges of the sheet. Draw a pattern in the landscape below the horizon. 

With watercolor paint: paint the sky. Paint the surfaces between the branches in warm or cool colors. Paint the surfaces in the landscape: warm if you first chose cool, cool if you first chose warm. 

With tempera: paint the branches and trunk black. 

Elements of art: color (warm and cool), space, line (pattern)

artworks made by students of grade 4

Colourful Christmas trees

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You need:

1. two drawing sheets A4 size
2. watercolour paint
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. tissue paper
6. scissors
7. glue
8. ruler
9. pencil
10. gold or silver marker
11. white correction marker
12. glitter

Paint a background for the Christmas trees with water paint. Use different colours and let them blend into each other. Use plenty of water for nice bright colours.
Choose three colours of tissue paper. Fold the sheets several times and cut triangles and squares. Take a sheet of drawing paper and make it wet with a brush and water. Lay the pieces of tissue paper on this wet sheet. If the tissue paper is not wet enough, it won't bleed. Then make it wet again with a brush with water. Fill the sheet with these tissue paper parts and leave it to dry. Remove the pieces of tissue paper from the sheet when it is completely dry. The sheet will look like this:

Cut long triangles from the sheet that was coloured with tissue paper. You may use the schedule above (based on A4 size sheet of 21 by 29 cm - half cm will remain on both sides then). You can cut a piece from the bottom of the triangles if you want trees of various heights. Paste these three trees with overlap on the water paint background. Don't paste the trees all at the same height, so you get depth. Cut some smaller triangles from the left overs if you want more trees.
Outline the trees with silver or gold marker. Draw a simple branch structure. Draw the strains with brown pencil or use the metallic pins. Draw snowflakes around and on the trees with a white (correction) marker or use chips from the punch. rond en op de bomen. Paste the artwork on a coloured background. Sprinkle some glitter on the forest floor.

All artwork is made by students of 11-12 years old

Xmas angels

Made by students of grade 3

You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. watercolour paint
3. brushes 
4. black marker
5. glitter 

Outline a saucer on a white sheet and cut it out. Draw an angel. Paint with watercolour paint. Outline with a fine glitter marker. 

Paste the artwork on another circle. 

Oscar the Octopus

You need:

1. drawing sheet A2 size
2. oilpastels
3. liquid watercolor paint
4. jar with water
5. brushes
6. salt

After a story about Oscar the Octopus and viewing some pictures of squids, students draw a squid in the sea. Big head, big eyes at the bottom of the head, eight tentacles that go over and under each other. These things should be seen in the drawing.

Color with oil pastels and draw patterns. Be sure the tentacles are going over and under each other - this has to be seen in the patterns.  Outline when necessary with a dark color.

Drip some liquid water color on the background after you made it wet. Sprinkle salt  for a great 'watery' effect.

All artworks are made by students of grade 3

Fruit in complementary colors

You need:

1. white sheets 20 by 20 cm
2. pencil
3. ruler
4. oilpastels
5. watercolor paint
6. brushes
7. jar with water

This lesson is originally from Miriam Paternoster's fantastic art lesson website: Arteascuola. 
Follow the link for a description of this lesson and be sure to look around there for more great art lessons!

By students of grade 4

Valentine - like Robert Indiana

Made by a student of grade 2

You need:

1. drawing sheet 20 by 20 cm
2. water colour paint
3. brushes
4. fine black marker

A lesson about the famous LOVE sculpture of Robert Indiana. I used the Dutch word LIEF (meaning Nice, or I like you) 

Fold the sheet in four squares. Draw hearts in each part. Draw fat letters on the foreground. Fill letters and hearts with patterns and paint with water colour paint. Outline with fine black marker. 

Blogwriter in NY!

Popsicles

Made by a student of grade 5

You need:

• water colour paint
• drawing sheet 25 x 25 cm
• brush
• white crayon
• jarswith water

Dras six popsicles with a white crayon on a white sheet. Paint them with watercolour paint. Paint the background blue, leaving an edge from about 2 cm white.

Veggies

Made by a student of grade 3

You need:

1. veggies
2. white drawing sheet
3. liquid watercolour paint
4. crayons
5. indian ink
6. brushes
7. jar with water

Talk about veggies and why we all have to eat them. Show several veggies.

Use crayons to draw several veggies on your sheet. No overlapping.  Just draw the outlines, don't colour them with crayons.
Colour with liquid watercolour paint. Use two colours to make the paint bleed.
Paint the background dark grey with dilluted indian ink.

Christmas trees in the snow

By students of grade 2

You need:

1. large drawing sheets 
2. liquid watercolour green and red 
3. oilpastel crayons 
4. brushes

Draw a wavy line, the ground. Draw several christmas trees. Simple triangles are okay, this lesson is about overlap - not all the trees next to each other. Decorate the trees with balls and garlands and draw presents under the trees. Colour with oil pastels. Use white oilpastel for snowflakes.
Paint with liquid watercolor, the ground has to stay white.

Funny birds like James Rizzi

I came across this great lesson for our first graders on Deep Space Sparkle. What a fun our students had, making these cute little birds in the style of James Rizzi!

James Rizzi was born in 1950 in Brooklyn. He studied art in Florida (Gainesville), where he started experimenting with printing, painting and sculpting. Rizzi’s work often shows his birthplace New York. His paintings look sometimes childishly naive, with the bright colours and brilliant gaiety. In the art press Rizzi is often described as "Urban Primitive Artist '. Rizzi himself says he is influenced byzelf Picasso, Klee and Dubuffet.

Show some paintings of Rizzi and discuss the characteristics:

• bright colours
• no gradations within colours
• evertything is outlined with a black marker
• the artwork is full and busy
• background is full and busy too

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 size cut lengthwise
2. markers
3. scissors and glue
4. blue cardboard A1 size for background

Discuss birds in Rizzi's artwork (google onRizzi + birds) and ask students if the typical Rizzi features are in the bird artworks too. 

The goal for this lesson: 

Use oilpastel to draw a bird just like Rizzi did. Use watercolour paint and paint the bird in one or two colours. Paint the background with several colours.

Artworks made by students of grade 1

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

Busy bees

You need:

1. white crayon
2. markers
3. liquid watercolour paint
4. brush

Fold the sheet of paper in half. Draw on both halves a bee. Colour the body with black and yellow marker. Colour the head black, keeping two white dots for eyes. Draw with black marker six legs and two wings. Use white crayon to draw veins in the wings.
Paint the background and the wings with liquid watercolour while keeping the edges white for about one cm.

Made by students of grade 3/4

Source: Artsonia.