Saturday, November 1, 2025

Autumn birches

What do you need?

  • drawing sheets A3 size *
  • painters tape in several widths
  • liquid watercolor paint in red, green and yellow 
  • brushes
  • tempera paint  
  • stencil brush
  • old shopping card/customer card
  • saucers and jars
* Choose thick drawing paper, to avoid ripping when you remove the tape . 

Before:
Look at birch trees. What do you see?   
 

  • straight white trunks
  • horizontal peeling bark
  • autumn color leaves: orange, yellow, brown, red
What to do?
Step 1
Place 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! 
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 a customer card in it. 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 some warm colors tempera + green on a saucer.  Stamp leaves at the top of the trees using the stencil brush. Do not mix colors, but use several colors at the brush at the same time. 

Step 5
Hang up! 

Works of art made by students of grade 1. 

Thursday, October 30, 2025

There's a ghost in my bedroom!

Help, there are ghosts in my bedroom! Behind the wardrobe, under my bed, behind the curtains....

What do you need:

  • white drawing sheet 
  • indian ink
  • dip pen
  • pencil
  • paper towel
  • black paper for background

What should you do? 

  1. Sketch your room with a pencil: bed, wardrobe, toys, window, door. 
  2. Draw ghosts on several places. 
  3. Trace the drawing with indian ink. Leave the ghosts white.
  4. Fill the rest of the drawing in with various textures*. 
  5. Paste the drawing on a black sheet.
* Look for a lesson on texture : Exercise in drawing texture

Artworks made by students of grade 5. 

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Positive negative pumpkin faces

What do you need?
  • black construction paper A4 
  • orange construction paper A5
  • ruler
  • pencil
  • scissors and glue
  • cutting knife
What should you do? 
  1. Divide in four rectangles.  
  2. Divide the four black rectangles each in two rectangles. 
  3. Divide the orange sheet in four rectangles; each rectangle is as big as a half black one.
  4. Draw half of a pumpkin against the edge of an orange rectangle. 
  5. Draw one eye, half of a mouth and a nose and cut out with a cutting knife.
  6. Cut the outline of the pumpkin. 
  7. Paste the half orange pumpkin against the edge of a black rectangle. Paste eye and mouth on the opposite side of the pumpkin.
  8. Repeat these steps to make the other three pumpkins.