Magnificent magnifier

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. colour pencils
3. coloured paper for background
4. magnyfying glass

Give students a magnifying glass and send them out to look how things increase looking through it. How does a blade of grass look through the magnifier? Or tree bark? Leaves? Flowers? Insects?

For this lesson children draw something from nature. Part of the drawing has to be seen through a magnifying glass. This magnifying glass will actually be drawn too. That what is seen through the magnifying glass, has obviously to be much more detailed as the environment.

Birds like Corneille (2nd lesson)

This lesson about Corneille is almost the same as the lesson I posted a few days earlier. However, drawings in this lesson are made with oilpastels by students in a lower grade. 

 You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. oil pastels
3. coloured ink
4. brushes
5. jar with water
6. coloured paper for background
7. glue or stapler

Life and work of Corneille
See my former lesson for information about the artist. 

What to do?
Show examples of Corneille's work. What subjects do you see in his paintings? What can you tell about his style: bright colours, thick black outlines, few details, painted as if it was made by a child, an image that sometimes is not complete (missing parts at the edges).

 
Draw the outline of a bird with a black crayon. Make surethe bird reaches at three edges of the sheet: it should be big! Colour in bright colours and/or patterns. Paint the background with deluted blue ink. Stick the drawing on a coloured sheet.

 

All artworks made by students of grade 3

Animals like Corneille

You need:

1. white drawing paper A3 size
2. tempera paint
3. brushes
4. paper towels
5. jar with water
6. coloured paper for background
7. glue or stapler

Life and work of Corneille
Guillaume Cornelis Beverloo (1922 - 2010), Corneille, was a Dutch artist, born in Belgium and died in France. He is buried on the same cemetery as Vincent van Gogh, a painter he highly admired . 

Corneille was an autodidact. In his early years he painted realistic: still lifes, people and landscapes. In 1948 Corneille was involved in the creation of the CoBrA Group, a group of Danish (Copenhagen), Belgian (Brussels) and Dutch (Amsterdam) artists. Even writers and poets belong to the CoBrA group. The artists' group only existed for three years, but has been very important for Corneille's work. 

According to Corneille, the CoBRA artists want to express themselves on a expressionistic way, like children, by playing open-minded with colours and shapes. Since 1950 Corneille lived and worked in Paris. His paintings are bright and colourful. The sun, women, paradise, trees and birds are recurring elements. He is particularly fond of birds. His artist name Corneille is French for 'crow'.

What to do?
Show examples of Corneille's work. What subjects do you often see in his paintings? What do you notice about his style? Discuss the features: bright colours, thick black outlines, few details, painted as if it was made by a child, an image that sometimes is not complete (missing parts at the edges).

 

In this lesson students have to sketch very briefly (maximum 5 minutes!), to avoid drawing too many details and to force them to work big. Students may  also choose to sketch with a small brush and light yellow paint. This will automatically result in working big with little details. The yellow lines can easily be painted with different colours later.

 

Sketching with yellow paint

Sketch the outline of a cat or bird and make sure this animal reaches at least three edges of the sheet: it should be big! Paint the animal in bright colours and/or patterns. Paint the background too. Leave the work to dry and outline everything using a small brush and black paint. Paint your name in black somewhere at the artwork, like Corneille did. Stick the painting on a coloured sheet.

 

All artworks made by students of 11 years old

A picture in pieces

In this lesson students have to copy a piece of a very detailed drawing by using a viewing window. The main issue in this lesson is texture. This lesson is a continuation of 'Exercise in drawing texture'.

You need:

1. detailed pen-and-ink drawing (download)
2. pencil
3. ruler
4. paperclips
5. drawing paper
6. indian ink
7. dip pen
8. paper towel
9. coloured cardboard
10. cutter and cutting mat
11. glue

Step 1

Give students half A4 sheet of stiff paper. Draw somewhere in the middle of the sheet a square of 5 by 5 cm and cut it out: this is your viewing window. Measure securely! The square doesn't necessarely have to come in the middle of the sheet, because it will only be used as a viewing window.

Step 2

Give students a sheet of white paper and tell them to draw two or three squares of 5 by 5 cm with some space between them. Students can use the mold from step 1, but measuring and drawing may be a good exercise too. (The squares will be cut at the end of the lesson, so the space between them is not so important.)

Detailed pen-and-ink drawing, click to enlarge

Step 3

Now each student has a viewing window and a drawing sheet with two or three squares on it. Give stuents a copy of the detailed house drawing (or search another drawing yourself) and two paperclips. The mission is: search with the viewing window a piece of the drawing you like most. Fix the viewing window with paperclips on the pen drawing and copy that piece as accurately as possible with indian ink in a square on the drawing sheet. Than copy one or two other pieces.

Step 4

Cut the drawings and paste them on one or more layers of coloured cardboard.

Made by children of 11/12 years old

Exercise in drawing texture

You need:

1. white drawing paper
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. indian ink
5. dip pen
6. coloured paper
7. glue

Tell students about texture: the way something is made, how the surface feels and what structure looks like. Let them feel several textures: the wall, an orange, stuffed animal etc. Discuss how texture can be drawn. A wall is not so difficult, but how do you draw texture in an orange? And how would you draw texture in a stuff animal?

Students draw six squares from 5 by 5 cm on their sheet using a ruler and pencil. Draw with indian ink six different textures in the squares. Cut the squares and make a composition of them on a coloured paper.

Exercise in colour mixing

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A3 size
2. yellow, red and blue tempera paint
3. brushes
4. pencil
5. ruler

Purpose of this lesson to learn students how to make secondary colours. Show Itten's colour circle and discuss it. Tell about primary and secundary colours and show how to make the secundary colours.

Students make a simple drawing on their sheet. In this lesson is chosen for a still life of vases , but you can also opt for houses. After this a 5 cm grid has to be drawn using pencil and ruler. The squares of the objects are painted with primary colours red, yellow and blue; be sure there is never the same color next to each other. The background squares are painted with the secondary colours orange, purple and green. Again: alternate, not the same colour next to each other. To avoid errors, it is useful to write the first letter of the colours in the squares before painting.

Wavy waves

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. markers
3. coloured paper for background
4. glue
5. scissors

Draw on a white sheet with pencil four wavy lines from left to right.

Then draw five wavy lines from top to bottom.

Draw a cross of slightly wavy lines in each square.

Choose three colours and colour the triangles: one colour for the bottom triangles of the squares, another colour for the left triangles and a third colour for the triangles on the right. The upper triangle in a square is always white. This is the foamy head of the wave!

Cut a slightly wavy line on the left, right and bottom of the drawing. Cut a strip of the upper triangles away. Paste the work 'wavy' on a coloured sheet.

Name tag - like Paul Klee

You need:

1. white drawing sheet, 15 by 21 cm (A5 size)
2. pencil
3. ruler
4. eraser
5. markers

This is a great lesson for the beginning of the school: a name tag in the style of painter Paul Klee. This drawing can also be used for the birthday calendar that each group makes at the beginning of the school year.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee (1879 – 1940) is a German/Swiss painter. His work belongs to the modern art. Klee developed mainly as an autodidact and left more than 9000 artworks. In 1912 he saw the work of Picasso and Malevich, and he met Robert Delaunay, who believed colour is the most important element in a painting. After a trip to Tunisia in 1914 Klee started to paint more colorful and abstract. He painted many subjects : landscapes, portraits, animals, mythology, mysterious machines. In his work he combined abstract and figurative shapes. Klee 's work cannot be described in one single word. Surrealism, cubism, abstraction are terms which are applicable to his paintings. He is classified by expressionism. (Source: Wikipedia)

Lesson

Show some artworks of Paul Klee and discuss them. What do you see? Wat zie je? What does strike you? Show finally the work 'Blue Night' and discuss this. Is this like the other works you 've seen? Do you recognize the painting style? What colours are used in Blue Night? How do we call those colours? Students have to make a drawing in Paul Klee style. Divide the sheets of paper. The sheet must be up with the short side. Using a gray pencil and ruler students divide the sheet into three strips of 5 to 21 cm.

Starting top left, write the first letter of your name in capital. The letter must be 5 cm high and touch the first line and the side and top of the sheet. Write the second letter. Be sure the second letter hits the first one, as well as the writing line and the top of the sheet. Do the same with the rest of the letters of your name. If you're ready with your name, start over again.

Writing lines are pink in this example. Click to enlarge.

Proceed on the second line and make sure the letters touch the top of the first line. The third line goes the same way, but the letters should touch the bottom of the sheet and the letters on the second line. See example above. Use an eraser to remove the writing lines. Beware: the letters must stay! So: with an E the bottom line is part of the letter, and should therefore not be erased.

The writing lines are erased. Click to enlarge.

Choose four colours markers. Colour the white spots who are completely surrounded by lines. This might be small spots from the letters, but they could be tall as well because of open letters. Make sure won't get twice the same color side by side. You can prevent this by colouring from top to bottom or from left to right. Choose cool colours just like Klee, or let the kids choose themselves. Just four colours!

Four colours. Example is made with Paintshop. Click to enlarge.

When it is finished, outline with a thick marker. In this example is chosen for silver, because it fits well with the cold colours of the work. To make a birthday calendar for the class, the work has to be pasted on a calendar sheet. This can be drawn, but can also be made on the computer as shown below.

A sea of flowers

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. waterpaint
3. brushes
4. jars with water
5. black permanent marker

A sea of flowers is an expression used for fields with so many flowers, that you can hardly see the end of it. Let children see examples of 'a sea of flowers'. Have you ever seen a sea of flowers yourself? Where or when?

Tell the students they are going to paint a sea of flowers, but literally! Flowers in the water, a lot of them!

Let the children directly paint their flowers, so no pencil drawing first. They use water paint and (lots of) water. Choose different colours and shapes, and paint steals and leaves too. Do not only paint in the middle of the sheet, but also at the edge so you can see half flowers. (If you choose this lesson for a group work, children should make agreements about the places their flowers will come together and the colours of the flowers).

When the flowers are ready, students paint the background with light blue waterpaint. Paint as close as possible along the flowers , but do not touche them to prevent colours from running together. Leave the work to dry. Outline the flowers with a black marker. All spots and white edges are thus concealed.

Paste all works together to create a group work: our sea of flowers!

Funky flipflops

By Marrit, 11 years old

You need:

1. two white drawing sheets A4 size
2. coloured construction paper
3. two split pens or paper fasteners
4. scissors
5. glue
6. markers

Tear wide strips of the narrow side of a sheet of light blue and a dark blue sheet construction paper. Paste thes over and over and partially overlapping on a white sheet of paper: these are the waves of the sea in which your flipflops will disappear! You can also choose yellow paper and sandpaper, to suggest the beach. Trace your foot on the second white sheet. Cut it twice. Remember that one of them should be a mirror image. Colour the flipflops with bright summer colours.

Cut out of the remaining white paper four strips of about 15 cm long and 1.5 cm wide. Colour these too. Prick a hole in both flip-flops on the spot between the big toe and second toe. Prick holes in the four strips, approximately 0.5 cm from the end. Insert a split pin through the two strips and the slipper. Glue the ends of the strips under the slipper. Paste the flipflops on the sheet with waves.

Selfportrait in manga style

You need:

1. half A4 size drawing sheet
2. colour pencils
3. black marker

Manga consist of comics and print cartoons in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II but they have a long, complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art.

The name comes from 'uncontrolled or random brushstrokes'. This refers to the loose style of drawing. Anime is the term used for manga style cartoon films. Ask students some examples of anime films. They probably know Pokemon and Dragonball Z. Show them some manga style drawings, there are lots of them on the internet. Discuss the remarkable things about manga:

• the characters tend to be slim and attractive
• in the comics for kids, the characters have large expressive eyes
• nose and mouth often consist of a smooth line
• the hair colours are striking and often unnatural
• the heads are large in proportion to body

There are numerous internet sites where you can learn to draw manga. Google op 'how to draw manga'. For almost each body part you can find sites. During this lesson the students make a portrait of their face in manga style. Give them the schedule for the head (on the blackboard or a copy).

Discuss how students can make the manga figure look like himself. Discuss how the head itself can look like a manga self portrait. Think of appearance as a hairstyle, glasses, moles, colour of the eyes, jewelry etc. Students draw their own head and shoulders in manga style. Colour with coloured pencil, outline with black marker.

Selfportrait in black and white

You need:

1. canvas
2. digital photograph
3. acrylic paint
4. brushes
5. carbon paper
6. pen

Show portraits made by Andy Warhol and discuss them. What is remarkable about those portraits? Would you recognize a Warhol? Why is that?
To make this selfportrait each child needs a digital portrait of himself. Use a photo editor to make the photo black and white. I used Corel Paint Shop Pro. Choose for 'image' and then 'grayscale'. Then click on 'effects', choose 'artistic effects' and then 'posterize'. Choose for four or five layers.
Print the photograph and trace it with a pen and carbon paper on a canvas. Paint the portrait with acrylic paint in greyscale. Paint the background in your choice of colours.

Summer memory

You need:

1. white drawing paper
2. watercolour paint
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. glue
6. colour pencils
7. grey or light brown cardboard

Passed holiday's are always full of memories. Sunset on the beach, a sunny afternoon in the woods or impressive threatening clouds above the sea. What colours belong to that memory? What colours belong to a sunset, to the woods and what colours would you use for the threatening thunderstorm?

Paint your sheet full with your holiday memories using watercolour paint. Paint sloping strips in different colours. After drying, tear the sheet in strips while following the different colours. Glue your strips with a little space between them on the grey/light brown paperboard. Write a title in beautiful characters and decorate the frame with little holiday memory doodles (shells, clouds, flowers etc).

Made by students of grade 5

Redecorate your chair

You need:

1. wooden chair for each student or one chair for two students
2. water-based paint in various colours
3. paint trays
4. paint rollers
5. brushes
6. sandpaper
7. ammonia
8. newspapers

Redecorating chairs is a nice activity for older kids. Ask students to bring an old wooden chair or buy some old ones in a recycle store. Discuss how to redecorate a chair. How do you manage that? Do you choose a theme, for instance flowers or sports, or do you want to decorate it with motives? You can even choose an artist. How about a Keith Haring chair, or a Piet Mondrian table? What colours do you use? How do you draw the design on the chair? Just drawing or is it better to use a template?

Create a design on paper, on which you see colours and patterns / designs clearly. 

Put the chairs on newspapers. Sand the chair and make it completely greaseproof with a cloth and ammonia water. Let dry. Draw the design first with pencil and paint it. 

The table below is redecoratied by a group of students. For the tabletop they used chalkboard paint. This table is still in our classroom as an instruction table. Useful, because we can write on it!

All furniture is redecorated by students of 11-12 years old

Totem poles

You need:

1. large paper tube
2. egg cartons
3. toilet rolls
4. masking tape or duct tape
5. wallpaper paste
6. scissors
7. cardboard
8. newspapers
9. tempera paint
10. brushes
11. varnish spray

Totem poles are an important art form for the Pacific Coast people. They are made from the trunks of red cedar trees and often depict people, animals, birds and fish. These characters are frequently arranged to be used to explain a story.

Divide the class in groups of four students. Give each group a large paper tube (aks a poster shop), a jar with wallpaper paste, cardboard, masking tape, egg cartons, toilet rolls and a lot of newspapers.

First decide how many characters you will make on your totem pole. Use cardboard to make appendages such as wings. These are first drawn out with a marker and then cut out. The appendages are then taped onto the tube. Use egg cartons or toilet rolls to make eyes or a mouth. Cover the armature of your totem pole completely with strips of newspapers.

Let the totem pole dry, this may take some days. The totem pole is then painted with tempera paint in bright colours. Finally spray the totem pole with varnish, to be sure the colours will shine.

Totem poles, made by students of 10-11 years old

Tree of life, like Gustav Klimt

You need:

1. black construction paper A4 size
2. thick gold marker papier
3. fine gel pens in metallic colours

Gustav Klimt (Austria, 1862 – 1918) was born near Vienna in a poor family. His father was was a gold engraver. This may have influenced Klimt in his use of gold in his paintings. In 1876, Klimt was awarded a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts . His work consists of paintings of mostly women, but also wallpaintings , drawings and collages. Klimt is much praised for the use of gold in his paintings.

Show some artwork of Klimt, and especially the painting 'Tree of life'. Discuss the distinctive features in the work: use of gold colour, the spiral branches, the bird, circles that look like eyes. Tell students about the symbolic significance of these motifs: the tree of life curls, just like in paradise, in all directions. On the lush branches grow flowers with eyes of wisdom and the paradise bird underlines the enchanting impact.

Give students a black construction paper. Let them draw the trunk of a tree that leads to curling branches. Fill the whole sheet with branches, of choose, just like the artwork above, a round shape. Fill the spaces between the branches with different patterns in metallic-coloured gel pens or markers.

Both artworks are made by students of 12 years old

Me and my iPod

You need:

1. drawing sheet A4 size
2. compass
3. colour pencils
4. black print of a break dancer
5. white sewing thread
6. scraps of white paper
7. scissors
8. cutter and cutting mat
9. glue
10. coloured paper for background

After a dance project, students of our school made these break dancers, listening to their iPods while dancing. Use pencil and ruler to divide the sheet lenghtwise in five compartments. Draw two meandering lines from top to bottom. The sheet is divided in 15 compartments now. Use a compass to draw circles of different sizes at the intersections of the lines. Colour all compartments alternately using two colours. Work top to bottom , to avoid mistakes.

Search the web for a black picture of a breakdancer and print it. Enlarge it on the copymachine until it fits on the drawing sheet. Cut this dancer and paste in on the drawing sheet.

Draw a little rectangle with a circle in it on a scrap of white paper: the iPod. Cut it and paste it in the hand of the dancer. Cut two very tiny circles, the headphones, and paste them on the head.

Cut a piece of sewing thread and make a loop in it. Cut the loop at the top - see picture. Paste the thread around the dancer, leading the two separate pieces to the headphones and the long piece to the iPod. Finally paste the arwork on a coloured background.

Made by students of 11-12 years old