Op art - like Henrique Matos

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. liquid water colour
3. jar with water
4. compasses
5. ruler
6. pencil
7. black waterproof markers

Henrique José Teixeira Matos is a Portugese painter. He is born in 1961 in Oporto.  Matos painted landscapes, portraits and abstract works, but is best known for his op-art work.
Show pictures of Matos's work on Wikimedia Commons. Look especially the op-art works and discuss what you see.

More op-art lessons on this blog can be seen following the link Op-art.

Paint a white sheet of paper with liquid watercolour and a lot of water a plain background.

Drip some liquid water colour on the surface while it is still wet. Use more water if the colours won't flow. Leave the sheet to dry.

Use compasses to draw some small circles (2 cm average) on the sheet. Draw wider circkels around them. Fill the sheet with those circles and half ones near the edges.

Draw lines from the middle of the circles to the edges. Be sure it's an even number of lines and  Kkeep the lines as much as possible equidistant from each other. Color the squares alternating with a black marker or pencil.

Op art hands

You need:

1. drawing sheet
2. pencil
3. ruler
4. markers 

Draw a grid on the sheet with squares from 2 cm by 2cm. Draw your hand or an object with a pencil. Color this alternately with black an a color of your choice.  Color the background squares with the same colors, but so that the checkerboard pattern reverses.

Where Keith Haring meets Piet Mondriaan

You need:

1. drawing sheet A2 size
2. black strips 1,5 cm wide
3. colored construction paper in red, yellow and blue
4. ruler
5. scissors
6. glue
7. black marker

This is a teamwork lesson for two students. 

Draw squares and rectangles of various sizes on the colored paper. Make sure they are straight: start from a right angle and measure carefully. Cut the squares and rectangles and spread them on the white sheet.  Make sure same colors do not touch each other and stick them. 

Continue with the black strips. Decide by yourself how many strips and where you want them, but there are four requirements:

• the strips must be sticked straight! (use your ruler)
• black strips must be sticked around all colored area's
• use the black strips to create white area's (squares and rectangles) 
• don't use to much glue. Let some strips stay loose so you can put a Haring figure behind it

Draw three or more Keith Haring  characters on the colored paper. Cut them and paste them on the Mondriaan sheet. Be sure there is no yellow character on a yellow area. 

Outline the characters with a black marker and draw some 'move stripes' around them.

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.

Popart like Burton Morris

You need:

1. several colours construction paper
2. black cardboard 20 by 20 cm
3. coloured cardboard 20 by 20 cm
4. scissors
5. glue
6. black thick marker

During our USA trip in the summer of 2009, I visited in the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, There I saw the artwork of Burton Morris for the first time: five paintings of cola bottles in pop-art style surrounded by light blue bubbles. So beautiful! Now I found a way to do this in school. And I think I'm the first blogger with a Morris lesson!

Burton Morris (Pittsburgh, 1964) is an American pop-art artist. He is influenced by pop-art artists from the 60's and 70's, like Warhol, Lichtenstein and Haring. Now he is one of the most famous modern post pop-art artist. Morris's work shows a contemporary twist to traditional pop-art. His work is cheerful, energetic and colourful. His characteristic lines with the bright colours give his work a fantastic energy. Morris's work is known of tv-series like Friends and also appears in major advertising campaigns by U.S. companies like AT & T, Pepsi and Heinz.

Source: www.burtonmorris.com

Show artwork of Morris on the digital board. Discuss the features: bright colours, black outlines, little detail, movement by little lines, white lines that suggest light and the distinctive black star shape around or in much of his work. Students are going to make an artwork in the style of Burton Morris with the subject: Valentine's Day.
Step 1. Take two colours cardboard: black for the edge and one colour for the background. take a construction paper for the big heart.
Step 2. Cut the edges of the background cardboard sloping away, to make a sort of rug. You have to cut at least 1 cm around.
Step 3. Cut a large heart from the second coloured cardboard. Cut white 'light lines' from a white sheet for on and around the big heart.
Step 4. Cut some smaller hearts from several colours of construction paper. Cut white 'light lines' and paste them on the little hearts; all on the same side.
Step 5. Paste the big heart on the coloured cardboard. Paste the light lines on the heart and around it.

Step 6. Cut long triangles from the sides of the rug, the 'flashy stripes'. Paste the rug on the black cardboard.

Step 7. Paste the small hearts around the big heart; you may k de kleine hartjes rondom het grote hart, where you can go over the triangles. Outline the small hearts with a black marker.

Step 8. Cut the black background away, leaving about 2 mm on the edges.

Step 9. Paste the work on a coloured sheet (A4 size) and cut it into a square.

Made by students of grade 4 and 5

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.

Happy new year!

Made by students of grade 6

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A3 size
2. water paint color
3. brushes
4. liquid water color paint
5. crayons

Draw some Dutch canal houses and color them with water color paint. Use crayons to draw fireworks. Then paint the sky dark blue with liquid water color leaving  the edges white.