Dutch canal houses

Made by Anne, 10 years old

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. indian ink or fine black marker
3. dip pen

Dutch canal houses are famous for their facades: stepped gable, neck gable, bell gable, clock gable or spout gable. Search the internet for photographs from canal houses and discuss the features of canal houses: the facades, the stairs, symmetry, windows, ornaments, shutters. 

Let students draw a line on their sheet about 5 cm from below. This is the canal. Sketch the houses lightly with a grey pencil. Indicate the places of windows, stairs, doors and shutters. Draw the houses with indian ink.

At the end stick all drawings together to get a long street full of canal houses.

Seahorse

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 format
2. watercolour paint
3. white crayon
4. brushes
5. salt

Show various photos of seahorses and discuss the characteristics of these remarkable animals. Children draw a seahorse with a white crayon on a white sheet. Details should also be drawn with the white crayon. The seahorse has to be painted with watercolour paint and a small brush. You may touch de lines, but do not cross them.

When ready, paint the background with a large brush, watercolour paint and lots of water. Try different colours blue or green (by adding water) and make sure they mix up a bit - wet on wet technique. Sprinkle salt on the background while it is still wet. The salt will absorb water and it gives a nice effect. When the drawing is completely dry, you can wipe the salt with a clean hand.

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.

Funny fishes

You need:

1. white drawing paper (A4 format)
2. water paint
3. black marker

Divide the sheet in nine rectangles from 10 to 7 cm. Draw a fish or shell on a small piece of cardboard that fits in the rectangle. Cut out the fish or shell, this is your template. Outline that mall in all rectangles.

Choose three colours to paint the figures. You may make patterns in them. Paint the backgrounds with the same three colours and make patterns if you want. Outline everything (fishes, patters and rectangles) with a black marker.

Famous name

You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. black marker
3. wasco crayons
4. black sheet for background

Write your name with a black marker several times on a white sheet. Upside down, from the top to the bottom, it doesn't matter. Write your names disorderly, taking care the letters will mix up.

When your sheet is full enough, choose a couple of colours you like. Colour just the white spots who are completely surrounded by black lines. This might be small spots from the letters, but they could be tall as well because they are between the names.

Glue your work on a black background.

Your name in a frame

You need:

1. white sheet
2. black marker
3. wasco crayons
4. black construction paper for background

Another fun idea with your own name!

Draw four diagonal lines on your white sheet to make five compartments. Use capital letters to write your name in the compartments, and take there that the upper and bottom side of the letters will touch the lines.

Colour the letters with a black marker. Colour the compartments with crayons. Glue your drawing on a black sheet.

Radial name design

You need:

• white drawing sheet from 21 cm by 21 cm
• black marker
• black fineliner
• black or coloured construction paper for background

There are many fun things to do with your own name! Draw a spot in the middle of the sheet (use a ruler!) and draw an even amount of lines to the sides of the sheet. In the example are ten lines, producing nine compartments. Write your name in capitals within a compartment, while the bottom and upper side of the characters reach the lines. Colour the characters with a black marker.

Then write your name with a fineliner as often as you can in small characters in the next compartment. You may write horizontally of diagonally, as you wish. You can even write in squares.

Fill the compartments alternate with big and small names. If you like it, you can colour the compartments with the big names with wasco crayons.

Graffiti

Juf Lisette is the maker of this lesson! You need:

1. Grey drawing sheet
2. Wasco
3. White drawing paper
4. Felt pens
5. Scissors, glue

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is sometimes regarded as a form of art and other times regarded as unsightly damage or unwanted. All children get a grey sheet and some white sheets. To get a wall texture, use wall bricks to scratch over with wasco crayons. Cut those bricks and glue them on the grey paper sheet.

Design your own name in graffiti characters and colour it with felt pens. Cut it out and glue it on your brick wall. Of course children can choose for a slogan of a pop artist instead of their name.

Graffiti, made by children from 10-11 years old

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.

Opart like Vaserely

You need:

1. white paper
2. markers
3. ruler and pencil
4. charcoal

Show the children works from Victor Vasarely. What do you see? Do you recognize the optical illusion? How did Vasarely make this? Do you see the shapes coming out from the background? What colours and shapes has been used? We call this opart or optical art. Tell children they are going to make an opart drawing today. Every child becomes a white sheet of paper and starts with outlining one or more round objects like a lid or a dish. Draw curved lines from above to below and from the right to the left. Draw a grid pattern behind the circle with squares from 1,5 to 1,5 cm. Teach children how to do this, it appeared not to be that easy...:) When finished, colour the squares in the circle like a checkerboard. 1. Go slow and think first, a mistake is easily made. 2. No two colours should be right next to eachother (side to side) 3. Colours should always be corner to corner with eachother To accentuate depth, we used a piece of charcoal and drew a shadow around the ball.

Beautiful butterflies

You need:

1. white drawing paper
2. tempera
3. brushes
4. glue and scissors
5. coloured paper for background

Paint with a small brush white tempera to create . Niet te kleine vakken maken, dat is lastig inkleuren later. Door het mengen van kleuren en wit worden de vakken gevuld. Vertel de kinderen dat ze de verf niet verdunnen, om felle kleuren te krijgen. Ook na het spoelen van de kwast moet deze goed worden drooggemaakt in een papieren doekje. Vouw een tweede tekenvel dubbel en teken tegen de vouw aan een of meer halve vlinders. Knip deze uit. Verf ze in dezelfde kleuren als de achtergrond, maar blijf daarbij een halve centimeter van de rand af zodat je een wit randje overhoudt. Trek met witte verf dunne lijntjes rondom het lijf van de vlinder en de versieringen als de verf voldoende aangedroogd is. Plak de gekleurde achtergrond op een groter vel wit papier. Plak dan de vlinders op, waarbij je ook over de witte rand kunt gaan. Doe alleen lijm achter het lijf, zodat de vlinders iets van het pier gaan afstaan voor een ruimtelijke effect.

Black and white prints

You need:

1. two pieces of linoleum from 10 x 10 cm
2. lino knive
3. mat
4. block printing ink in black and white
5. flat piece of glass
6. linoleum roller
7. white paper A4 size
8. black papier A4 size
9. lino press

For this artwork you need two square pieces of linoleum. Draw simple patterns or simple figures. Cut from the first piece of lino the figures out and leave the background (negative). Cut from the second piece of lino just the background out while leaving the figures (positive). Press both works several times in black ink on white paper and white ink on black paper. Choose the best out of those prints. Paste the white prints on black sheets and the black prints on white sheets. Paste the black print on white paper sheets on a larger black sheet. Paste the white print on black paper sheets on a larger white sheet. Finally glue the black and white sheets together.

Made by students from 10-11 years old

Animal silhouette

You need:

1. white drawing sheet, A3
2. tempera and brushes
3. pictures of animal furs and side views of the corresponding animals
4. black construction paper
5. scissors and glue

For this task the children search the internet for photos of animal fur. The photographs have to be printed in colour. Then they paint the fur as accurately as possible on the white sheet. While drying, children can look for pictures of the animal from which they just painted the fur. This picture has to be a side view.

Print the animal and use a copier to enlarge it. The animal picture must fit on the painting of the fur.

Put the picture of the animal on black paper and tape it down. Then cut exactly along the outer lines of the image, while cutting the black paper also. Glue the silhouette on the painting.

Growing landscape

You need

1. drawing sheets A 3
2. tempera
3. brushes and water
4. photographs (or parts of them) from landscapes

A little piece from a landscape picture or a complete photograph (look for them in travel guides) will make a beautiful painting! Glue the litte piece somewhere on your sheet and paint the landscape as you imagine it would be!

Proud as a peacock

Made by students of grade 5

You need:

1. photographs from peacocks
2. peacock feathers
3. white drawing sheet
4. wasco crayons
5. watercolour paint
6. blue or green construction paper

Male peacocks are notable for their long tail, consisting of long feathers, with eyes at the end. Look at photo's of peacocks and try to get some peacock feathers in your classroom. How do you recognize a peacock? What does his body look like? And his head? What has he got on his head? Loot at the feathers and discuss the features. What does the eye in the feather look like? What colours do you see?

Children draw a rough pencil sketch of the body and the head of the peacock. It won't be necessary to draw each individual feather, this can be done while colouring.

Colour the peacock wih oilpastel crayons. When ready, paint the whole sheet with light blue watercolour paint. Oil pastel will resist. Finally glue the drawing on a blue or green sheet.

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.

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.

Ocean animals

You need

1. white drawing paper A4 format
2. blue markers
3. coloured paper for background

After a class discussion about animals in the ocean (and there are much more than just fish!), children draw an animal of their choice. The animal is drawn largely and has to be kept white (of course there may be in eyes etc.). After this the background has to be filled with lines in different patterns. Use only blue feltpens or markers, to support the ocean effect.

Printing with you hands

With your hands you can make beautiful prints. You need:

1. black tempera
2. glass plate
3. paint roller
4. sheets A4 size in different colours
5. glue and scissors

Put some black paint on a glass plate. Roll the paint well, till the glass is covered. Put your hand in the paint and press firmly. Put your black hand on a sheet of coloured paper and make a print. Make four prints on four different colour sheets. Maybe you have to make even more, because some of them won't succeed. Never mind, choose the best ones after printing! Cut your prints after drying with 1 cm extra around the paint. Stick all prints on different colour paper and you have a beautiful artwork in the style of Andy Warhol!

Newspaper city

By students from 10-11 years old

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 size
2. tempera paint
3. newspapers
4. scissors and glue
5. brushes
6. black paper for background

Paint a blue or grey blue sky on a white sheet with clouds in it. Use different colours of blue and grey. Cut some typical city center buildings in various forms out of newspaper. Paste them on a white sheet. In front of the high buildings we see smaller ones (overlap). Outline the buildings with black tempera paint. Paint windows and doors. Paint the sides black; think carefully about which side is really visible. Hang all artworks together to create a long street.