Olympic athletes

You need:

1. scissors
2. glue
3. white drawing paper A1 size
4. cardboard in Olympic colors
5. compasses

Start this lesson with the symbol of the Olympics: the colored rings. What do these rings mean? What colors do they have? How are they placed together? Ask one or two children to take the position of an athlete. What is the position of the legs, arms and body? Ask another student to show another position and discuss it again.
This is a group work for five students. Every group gets a big white sheet, five sheets of colored cardboard (colors of the rings: black, yellow, red, blue, green) and at least five copies of the athlete.
Step one: each group member cuts an Olympic ring, using compasses and scissors. Paste this five rings on the big white sheet. Look carefully which ring has to be pasted in front or back, and which ones have to be pasted through each other. Be sure the little cutting line is pasted underneath another ring.

  Step two: Every student takes a copy of the body and cuts every part of it. Then these bodyparts have to be pasted around, in, behind and in front of the Olympic rings.

Stamping with Mondrian

Goal: reducing the visible world in horizontal and vertical lines and primatr colors.   

Technique: stamping. 

You need:

1. black cardboard 
2. sponges cut in different sizes (squares and rectangles) 
3. tempera paint in red, blue and yellow 
4. brushes
5. white crayons 

View these artworks of Mondrian and talk about how he abstracted a tree. 

Also talk about Victory Boogie Woogie, the painting in which you can see part of the map of New York. Tell students we are going to make our own Mondrian map. Discuss the terms primary colors, square, rectangle, vertical and horizontal lines.

Instruction 

Brushes will not be rinsed, but will remain the same color.

Show how to use a brush to rub the sponge with paint. 

Show how to stamp: do not slide the sponge, but lift it off the paper. This way you'll get a tight shape.  

Stamp horizontally or vertically only. 

Do not stamp two of the same colors next to each other. 

Make sure the shapes don't touch each other. You must be able to see the black roads between them. 

When the work had dried, draw stripes on the black roads using a white crayon. 

Elements of art: shape, color, line. 

Artworks are made by students of grade 1/2. 

Monet's waterlilies pond

 You need:

1. drawing paper A3 size
2. tempera paint in green, blue, white, red and yellow
3. two brushes per student
4. two spunges per student
5. paper towels
6. oil pastel crayons 
7. schotels  

Claude Monet (1840-1926) is considered one of the most important painters of Impressionism. 

 Typical for Impressionists:

• they choose subjects from ordinary life 
• special attention for light and color
• work in the open air
• smooth brushstrokes
• dashes resemble a sketch
• it's about the impression!

Discuss the term impressionism. Show some paintings by Monet and zoom in on a work with water lilies in Arts & Culture. Do students see the characteristics of impressionism in this artwork?

Monet had a large garden with a pond and a Japanese bridge in Giverny France. He liked to paint in that garden. His works of water lilies are therefore famous and are the basis of this lesson.

Lesson 1

Squeeze some blue, green and white paint onto a saucer. Dipt your sponge into the blue paint. Stamp on the sheet. Do the same with green paint and stamp all over the sheet. Finally do this with white paint. You can use the green side of your sponge,  to get a light green color also. Let the work dry.

Lesson 2

To paint the water lilies: mix a little bit of red with white paint. Paint ovals spread across the sheet. Not too neat, it's all about impression!

Paint a green border at the bottom of the ovals: the leaf. To make it fresher, you can mix some light green paint and use it. You don't have to clean the green brush first. 

Then paint a heart in your flower with yellow. Let the work dry. 

Finally draw lines in your lily with a dark red or purple oil pastel: the petals. 

Artworks made by students of grade 1 and 2.

Mexican amate

You need:

1. brown paper bag
2. tempera paint in fluoresecent colours and white
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. black marker
6. coloured paper for background
7. glue or stapler

Amate is a way of making paper, done for centuries by Mexican Indians. Amate paper is made by cooking the inner bark of various trees. At the beginning of the 20th century the Nahua Indians of Mexico started making amate paintings as a form of folk art, especially in order to exchange and sell them to tourists.

Show some pictures of Mexican amate paintings. Discuss the features: birds, flowers, bright colours and black outlines. A frame around the drawing with a pattern in bright colours too.

Tear the edges off the paper: use thumb and fingers of both hands and tear slowly. Use a pencil to draw some birds and flowers, add a patterned frame and paint everything with fluorescent tempera. Let dry and outline everything with a black marker. 

Paste or staple the artworks on coloured construction paper.

Tamponing an Easter bunny

 You need:

1. colored paper
2. tamponing brushes 
3. white tempera paint
4. pencil and color pencils  

A lesson to learn the technique of tamponing with a tamponing brush: do not move the brush back and forth, but stamp. Result will be a softer texture than when using normal brushes.  

No tamponing brushes in school? Give students a cotton ball in a cloth spin. 

What to do?

Scetch the outline of an Easter bunny. Press the pencil as gently as you can, to avoid thick pencil lines under the white paint. 

Stamp the bunny and let dry. 

Draw the outlines with a blak pencil. 

Draw small lines all around with a black pencil. 

Decorate the artwork with spring flowers. 

Art work made by students of grade 2.