Autumn leaves with tissue paper

You need:

1. white drawing 
2. tissue paper in autumn colors
3. brush
4. jar with water
5. white crayons

What should you do?

• Show different shapes of autumn leaves. Discuss shapes and colors. 
• Draw different leaves on the sheet with white crayon. 
• Tear parts of tissue paper (not too small). Use warm autumn colors. 
• Stick the pieces by wetting the sheet part by part and laying them in it. Watch out: no two same colour pieces next to each other. Be sure the tissue paper is wet enough to bleed.

• Let the artwork dry a little. When it's still moist a bit, pull of the tissue paper.

Works of art made by students of grade 3. 

Autumn leaves in cubist style

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. pencil
3. ruler
4. tempera paint
5. brushes
6. gold color marker

Ask students to take autumn leaves. Watch them together, paying particular attention to the shape: heart-shaped, oval, round, oblong, etc. The composition of the leaves may vary: a leave can be single or composed of several leaflets (pinnate or palmately).

What to do?

1. Draw several leaves, they may not overlap. Draw half leaves against the edges. Draw only the outer form of the leaves, so no veins. 
2. If the is largely filled, draw diagonal lines using a pencil and ruler: two from left to right and two from top to bottom. Make sure these lines pass through the leaves. 
3. Paint the drawing with four warm colors tempera: two colors for the leaves and two for the background. Paint the leave parts within a shape in one color and the background in a different one. Paint the leaves in the next square in a third color and the background with color four. 
4. Trace contour lines of the leaves and the diagonal lines with a gold marker.

Works of art made by students of grade 6.

Whirling leaves

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. watercolor paint
3. brushes
4. jar with water
5. small and broad black marker
6. colored construction paper for background
7. glue

Ask students to take some flat dried leaves. Every student chooses one of his own leaves and outlines it several times with a pencil. Remember to draw not all the leaves in the same way on the paper, because they whirl down from the tree. Make sure some leaves go over the edge; these will later be finished on the background.

Paint the leaves with watercolor paint. Use water to dillute the paint less or more. Choose warm fall colors and try to make transitions in the colors by using wet in wet technique.

Paint the background blue. Use again the wet in wet technique, and/or choose for wet on dry. You don't have to paint exactly against the leaves, because they will be outlined later.

Leave the work to dry and paste in on a colored background. Outline the leaves with a thick black marker. Use a fine black marker for the veins, while observing carefully the real leaves. Don't stop with outlining and drawing veins when you reach the background, but go on with it there.

Works of arde made by students of grade 6.

Autumn leaves mandala

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. compasses
3. pencil
4. oil pastels

Draw a circle with a diameter of 20 cm. Draw within about 1 cm another circle (the edge of the mandala). Cut out and fold into 8 pieces. Draw against one of the folds half of an autumn leaf using black oil pastel.

Fold the sheet and press firmly with the hands to get a print of the leaf on the other side of the fold. Trace this half with black oilpastel. Repeat this and draw the other three leaves. Colour the leaves and background with oil pastels in warm colours. Colour the edge with a nice pattern.

All works of art made by students of grade 6.

It's warm blanket time!

 Days are getting shorter, nights are getting colder. Time for a warm blanket!

What do you need:

1. colored paper for background (achtergrond)
2. brown paper 
3. leftovers of colored and white paper 
4. white drawing sheet cut in square 
5. watercolor paint + brushes
6. crayons
7. black marker
8. scissors and glue

Divide thhis lesson over more moments. Consider in advance whether you will give students a mold of the bear's head or whether they will have to draw it themselves. 

Folding and painting: 

For the blanket: fold the white sheet into 16 squares. Paint each square in a different color. Let dry. Draw stripes with a crayon on the folds of the squares just like on a patchwork blanket. 

Cutting:

• draw a bear's head on brown  paper and cut out, or trace the bear head template and cut out. 
• for the legs four ovals out of brown paper. 
• for the snout a circle out of colored paper. 
• for the ears two half circles out of colored paper. 
• for the eyes two small circles out of white paper. 

Pasting and drawing:

• stick the hind legs on the colored sheet. 
• stick the blanket so that the legs come out from underneath.
• stick the head halfway onto the blanket and the front legs underneath.  
• stick snout, eyes and ears on the head.
• draw nose, whiskers and pupils with a black marker. 

Artwork made by students of grade 1.  

Techniques: folding 16 squares, cutting shapes, pasting. 

Elements of art: shape, color. 

Just like Bart van der Leck

Bart van der Leck (1876-1958) was a Dutch painter and designer. He was part of De Stijl art movement with, among others, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld. Artists of De Stijl searched for a new art style that better suited to the future after World War 1.   

To create his abstract art, Van der Leck reduces a figurative representation further and further to squares, rectangles, triangles and lines in red, yellow and blue against a white or grey background. Although art work of Mondrian and Van der Leck may look similar, there is an important difference: Van der Leck works from a figurative representation that he slowly simplifies, while Mondriaan works directly from abstraction. 

artwork made by students of grade 3

View three works of art by Bart van der Leck without mentioning the titles: The Sower (1921), Composition IV (1918) and Farm girl with cow  (1921). (due to copyright only the links to the originals here.) 

Ask students what they see in the paintings. They may nog immediately see a sower, but probably come to a man who does something. A hiker? But what are those red squares? Do they see a cow and a farm girl? How do you recognize a cow? And finally: what do you see in Composition IV? This is the most abstract work and there is no clear representation in it. Perhaps students have an idea? 

Ask about the similarities between these works: 

• primary colors + black
• just straight lines 
• white background

What do you need?

1. action photo of an athlete
2. black sheet and a half white sheet
3. scraps of paper in red, yellow and blue 
4. scissors
5. glue

What should you do?

1. Find a photo of an athlete in action and paste in on black paper.  
2. Cut out strips and squares from red, blue and yellow.  Place them in the same shape as the athlete on white paper. Satisfied? Glue them.
3. Glue the white sheet below the photo on the the black sheet. 

Elements of art: shape, line, color.

Techniques: cut and glue en plakken. 

Cat and bird, like Paul Klee

Paul Klee (1879 – 1940) is a German/Swiss artist. His work straddles the line between figurative and abstract. Klee painted landscapes, portraits, animals, mythology, mysterious machines. Does his work belong to cubism, expressionism or surrealism? He brought something from every art movement. Klee looked for patterns and motifs in all kind of art styles: African art, Islamic decorations, clothing and also form children's drawings. Klee left behind more than 9000 works of art.  

Cat and bird, Paul Klee, 1928

You need:

1. drawing sheet
2. pencil
3. black marker
4. watercolor paint
5. pencils

What do you see?

Discuss Klee's painting Cat and bird. 

• the head of a cat with a bird above his eyes. What would this mean? Does the cat dream of its prey? 
• left side of the head is wider than the right side
• large eyes with vertical pupils
• one eye is larger than the other
• warm colors, except the eyes
• bright pink nose in the shape of a heart

How to make it?  

Step 1: Fold the sheet in four. Scetch a W. 

Step 2: Put a dot on the fold and and draw a slightly curving line to it from both sides: the top of the head.  

Step 3: Continue the lines from step 2 downwards.  

Step 4: Draw the eyes from the center to the  side. Draw pupils.  

Step 5: Draw nose, whiskers and the little bird.  

Step 6: Color cat and background using water color paint. Trace the outlines with a black marker.  

Drawings made by students of grade 1, 2 and 3.  

Elements of art: color, line, shape.

Step by step idea: Blowing Rock Museum, NC. 

Stained glass, like Theo van Doesburg

 

 You need:

1. firm white drawing paper  
2. ruler
3. pencil
4. color marers
5. waterproof black marker 
6. salad oil
7. brush 
8. paper towels

Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) was a Dutch painter, architect and writer. He was charmed by the abstract art of Kandinsky and Picasso's cubistic work. In 1917 he founded the magazine De Stijl, in which he and other artists could publish their innovative ideas about art. Famous Dutch artists who belong to the Stijl are Piet Mondriaan, Bart van der Leck and Gerrit Rietveld. 

Theo van Doesburg, abstraction of a cow (1918)

Van Doesburg also designed stained glass windows. Abstract art thus became a functional part of a building. 

For this lesson I used his stained glass window Composition VIII. It was designed as an upper window for the front doors of houses built in 1918 in Rotterdam. During the restoration of the houses in 1989, the windows were removed and a number of them were purchased by museums. 

Composition VIII

Discuss what stands out:

• only rectangles and squares 
• rectangles can stand or lie
• maximum 3 colors plus white
• never two of the same colors next to each other  
• black outlines 
• a long horizontal line through the center  

What should you do?

Step 1

Use a ruler and pencil to draw a horizontal line through the center of the drawing sheet. Then draw rectangles and squares. Measure carefully to be sure your shapes are really symmetrical.  

Step 2

Choose 3 colors of markers and color the shapes. You can use white too, by leaving shapes white. No two of the same colors next to each other. Trace the dividing lines with black permanent marker; use a ruler! Draw thickenings at the intersections of the lines, just like in stained glass windows.   

 

Step 3

Place your work on a newspaper and pour a dash of oil on it. Spread it with a brush. 

Step 4

Remove excess oil with a paper towel. Let the work dry. This can take some time!  

Elements of art: color, shape, line.
Techniques: measuring, working with a ruler, coloring.