Picture book illustration

Students of grade 6 made this illustration. After a good study of the original illustration in a Dutch picturebook, they made a list of required materials to use for this artwork. The faces and arms are painted, the clothes and curtains are cut out of fabric, the wallpaper comes from a sample book for wallpaper and the flags are from scraps of paper.

Cat on head - like Corneille

Made by a student of grade 3

You need:

1. drawing sheet A3 size
2. oil pastels
3. liquid watercolor paint
4. brushes

Corneille painted often cats, birds and women. There are some paintings where he painted the cat on the head of a woman!
Show Corneille paintings on the digital board or use google: 'Corneille woman cat'.

Who of you has a cat at home? Does it ever lie with you? Does your cat ever lie on your head?

Look at these artworks. What do you see? Why would the painter left the cat's eyes white?  Do the women on the paintings have hair? 

Draw a head on your sheet with oilpastel (dark color). Maybe your own head, but you may choose another head too. Draw a cat sitting, standing or lying down on the head. The cat looks like hair! What hairstyle it is, had to do with the position of the cat. 

Color your drawing with bright colors. Trace the outlines with a dark color if necessary and paint the background with liquid watercolor paint. 

Made by a student of grade 3

There are more lessons about Corneille on this blog! Use the search function. 

Corneille China

Made by a student of grade 1

You need:

1. paper plates)
2. black markers
3. acrylic paint
4. small brushes 
5. jars with water and paper towels

Show some pictures of animals in Corneille's artwork. What do you see? What can you say about the colors? Do you like it? Why or why not? What animals do you see on the china?

Choose an animal. Use a black marker to draw it on your plate. You can also decide to draw just the head of the animal. Your drawing has to be large, it has to fill almost the entire plate. Can you think of anything else? Does the moon shine? Is your animal with others? Or is it in the grass? You can make it!

Color your drawing with acrylic paint and a brush. Choose bright colors and make sure it's opaque. Rinse your brush with each new color and dry it well in a paper towel; the acrylic paint shound not get wet.

Trace the marker lines again if necessary but only if the paint is really dry.

More information about Corneilla and the Cobra group on this blog:  Lesson 1 en lesson 2.

We wish you a merry Xmas

You need:

1. green construction paper, 20 by 20 cm
2. white tempera paint
3. white pencil
4. fine markers in white and black
5. colored markers

Draw staves on the sheet using a white pencil. Make fingerprints for the snowmen: use the tip of your finger for the head, use your thumb for the body. Wait till the paint has dried. Use a black fine marker to draw brooms, branches=arms, stones=eyes+mouth. Draw the carrot = nose with orange marker and draw caps of hats on some of the snowmen.
Finally, draw the text of We wish you a merry Xmas (or another Christmas song) under the staves. 


Source: 50 Xmas things to make and do, Usborne

Collage like Karel Appel (CoBrA)

On black background, made by a student of grade 5

You need:

1. black or white drawing sheet A3 size
2. colored construction paper, 5 colors for each student 
3. glue
4. black tempera paint
5. small brush
6. liquid water color paint for background 

Karel Appel (1921-2006) was a Dutch expressionistic painter and sculptor, famous as one of the founders of the CoBrA movement. CoBrA stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
CoBrA artists were inspired by children's drawings and the art of mentally disturbed.

Tell your students about abstract and figurative art. Show abstract and figurative artworks and ask which word belongs to them.
Then view some of Karel Appel's works: Little Boy, Some people together, Blue faced beast and Saarbrücken (Google pictures). Are these figurative or abstract? Put your hand on the eyes of the painting. Is the artwork still figurative? Students will discover the Appel's art is very close to abstract. 

When we see Karel Appel, we discover:

• large surfaces
• bright colors
• a few colors
• thick black lines

Students tear (using two thumbs and two fingers, show well how they have to tear)  organic shapes from the construction paper.  It's absolutely not the intention to tear a human of animal. The shapes have to be 'just like that'.  Some students will smuggle a little bit and stick an eye somewhere. Then squeeze an eye :) but do not accept clearly laid human figures.

When they have torn enough pieces, students make a composition of the shapes and paste them on the black or white sheet. The pieces may also be stuck over or on top of each other. Then the most exciting part of this lesson: what do I see in my collage? Ask a classmate to keep your work up. What do you see? Turn the work 90 degrees, and again and again. Do you see an animal or a human?
Use black paint and a thin brush to draw lines on your artwork so that your human of animal is also visible to others. Not too much lines, there must be some guesswork too!

On a painted backgrond, made by student of grade 5

Mondriaan: from 2D into 3D

You need:

1. white construction paper  A4 size
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. colored construction paper in yellow, blue and red
5. black marker
6. cutting mat and cutter 
7. glue

Show artworks of Piet Mondriaan and De Stijl and discuss them.

Fold the white sheet in 5 columns. The columns don't have the be the same width. Divide the sheet with pencil and ruler in three rows (thin, the lines have to be erased later).
Cut rectangle and squares out of colored paper. Make sure they are not wider as the columns. Paste  the rectangles and squares between the folded lines and outline them using a ruler and a black marker. Connect each one with its 'neighbour' with a marker. The lines should be horizontal or vertical.

Then cut two horizontal lines from the start of column 2 towards the end of column 4 (see picture).

Mondriaan cube

You need:

1. white cardboard
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. cutting mat and knife
5. markers
6. glue

After a lesson about the work of Piet Mondriaan, students draw a template of a cube (nice goal for the math lesson!). The surfaces are 8 by 8 cm, the stick edges are 1 cm.

Cut the template with a cutting knife. Use a black fine marker to draw squares at 1/2-1 cm from the edges. Within these squares you draw straight lines to get some rectangles and squares. Color these using Mondriaan colors: red, yellow and blue. Leave some surfaces white.

Fold the stick edges and paste them to get the Mondriaan cube!

Sawing like Piet Mondriaan

Made by a student of grade 3

You need:

1. black construction paper
2. plywood  
3. ruler and pencil
4. tempera paint in primary colors kleuren + white
5. brush
6. coping saw
7. sandpaper
8. glue

Divide a rectangular piece of thin plywood into rectangles and squares using ruler and pencil and saw them. Place every piece directly on the right spot the black construction paper. All pieces have to form a rectangle again. 

Sand the edges of pieces. Paint the pieces in primary colors and white. Past them on the black sheet.