Colorful Christmas trees

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What do you need?

• two white drawing sheets A4 size
• water color paint
• brushes
• jar with water
• tissue paper
• scissors and glue
• ruler
• pencil
• gold or silver marker
• white correction marker
• glitter

What should you do?

1. Paint a background on the first white sheet with water color paint. Use different colors and let them blend into each other. Use plenty of water for nice bright colors.
2. Choose three colors tissue paper. Fold the sheets several times and cut triangles. 
3. Wet the second white sheet with a brush. 
4. Place the triangles on it and leave it to dry. 
5. Cut long triangles. You may use the schedule. Cut a piece from the bottom of the triangles if you want trees of various heights. Cut some smaller triangles from the left overs if you want more trees.
6. Paste the triangles with overlap on the colored background. 
7. Outline with silver or gold marker and draw a simple branche stucture.
8. Draw snowflakes with a white marker or use chips from the hole punch. 
9. Sprinkle some glitter on the forest floor.
10. Paste the artwork on a colored background.

Works of art made by students of grade 7. 

Tea light holder of paper, ink and oil!

These beautiful colored light holders are made of paper, ink and salad oil! 

What do  you need?

1. sketch paper
2. pattern (ask me by mail)
3. liquid watercolor paint
4. great brush
5. scissors
6. strong glue
7. salad oil
8. paper towels
9. little glass jar
10. tea light

What should you do?

1. Download the pattern of this light holder and copy it on scetch paper. 
2. Wet the paper and sprinkle with a big brush liquid water color on the sheet. The drops will flow in the water. Fill the whole sheet with color. 
3. Let dry. 
4. Pour some salad oil on a plate. Paint the whole sheet with oil using a big brush. 
5. Put the oily sheet between paper towels and let it dry for one day.
6. Cut out the pattern. 
7. Fold the edges and stick the tea light holder together with strong glue.

Made by students of grade 6. 

Scratch a Christmas ball

What do you need?

1. drawing sheet
2. oil pastels or crayons
3. black tempera paint 
4. brush
5. aluminium foil 
6. ribbon
7. toothpick or skewer

What should you do?

1. Color the sheet with crayons. 
2. Paint it over with black tempera paint and let dry. 
3. Scratch with a toothpick a Christmas ball and fill it with patterns. 
4. Cut a small piece of aluminium foil and paste it on the ball with a folded ribbon under it. 

Works of art made by students of grade 6.

Elements of art: line (pattern)

Dutch December skyline

The Dutch website juf Lisette has a lesson we do every year: the December skyline! 5 December is the day Sinterklaas visits all Dutch children to give them presents. You can read more about Sinterklaas and his Petes in the category Typical Dutch.

What do you need?

1. construction paper in dark blue, yellow and black
2. paperclips
3. scissors
4. cutting knife
5. cutting blade
6. glue

What should you do?

Draw the skyline of a street on the black paper. Add a tree if you want to, or draw a Pete near the chimney.

Put the black sheet on the yellow one and attach them to each other with four paperclips. Cut out the skyline; you'll cut two sheets at the same time. When ready, remove the paperclips and cut some windows out of the black sheet.

Cut a moon out of the rest of the yellow sheet.
Stick the black and yellow skyline together and slide the black sheet one millimeter so you see the yellow edges.
Look to the position of the moon: the yellow edges are there where the moon shines.
Stick the moon on the blue sheet and stick the skyline below. 

Autumn trees near the water

What do you need?

1. light blue drawing paper A4
2. oilpastel crayons
3. tempera paint in autumn colours
4. brushes

What should you do?

1. Fold the paper in half. Above the fold is the country, below is the water. 
2. Draw on the upper side with oilpastels some trees without leaves in the grass and color them firmly. 
3. Draw below the fold the reflection of these trees. Color them less thick.
4. Make leaves on the trees at the upper side by tamponing warm colors tempera paint with a brush. Don't mix up the colors but use two colors on the same time. 
5. Fold the sheet when the paint is still wet to get the reflection on the lower side of the sheet. Press gently but do not rub!

Works of art made by students of grade 4. 

Owl in moonlight

See the moon shining through the trees... and in the moonlight everything looks blue. 

What do you need?

1. white drawing sheet 
2. oil pastel
3. blue ink
4. brush
5. dish with water
6. scouring pad

What should you do?

1. Scetch a winter tree, so a tree without no leaves. Be sure your branches are thinner at the end. 
2. Scetch a moon between the branches. 
3. Draw an owl on one of the branches.
4. Color the tree with blue oil pastel. Make differences in color by pressing harder or softer, or by using a little black or white. 
5. Color the owl blue too. Use yellow or orange for eyes and beak. 
6. Color the moon white-yellow in the center and darker yellow at the outside.
7. Outline everything (even the smallest branches!) with white oil pastel. This is a difficult chore, because you barely see the white and you run the risk that the white crayon will get blue (scrape it then!).
8. Paint the background with blue ink, water and a scouring pad. The white lines will resist the ink. Put undiluted blue ink on a dish and dip the soft side of a scouring pad in it. Stamp along the outer edges of the drawing. 
9. Add water to the ink when you're nearer at the moon to make the blue lighter. Make a light blue circle around the moon.

Owls in the tree

You need:

1. grey construction paper
2. two thick and large white drawing sheets
3. brushes
4. scissors and glue
5. linoleum 12 by12 cm *
6. lino knives
7. flat piece of glass
8. block printing ink
9. lino press
10. linoleum roller

* Or use foam to make the prints.

Before the lesson: 

• Have two students paint a large sheet of thick white paper with brown tempera and accents in yellow and red to create a wood structure. 
• Let them paint another large sheet in warm autumn colours.

This painted sheets can be used by all students for tearing branches and tree trunks and cutting leaves.   

What should you do? Lesson one: 

1. Draw an owl on linoleum. 
2. Cut the outlines, wings, eyes, claws and beak. 
3. Decorate with small patterns. 
4. Print the owl several times in two colors and let dry.

Lesson two: 

1. Tear a tree trunk and branches from the brown painted paper. 
2. Cut leaves from the autumn sheet. 
3. When dry: cut the printed owls with a little edge (1 or 2 mm). 
4. Look for a great composition and paste everything on a grey sheet. 

Works of art made by students of grade 7. 

Ow ow ... owls!

What do you need?

1. white drawing sheet 
2. black markers in different sizes
3. yellow or orange marker
4. liquid watercolor
5. brushes
6. black construction paper
7. photographs of owls

Watching owls
Discuss external features of owls using photos.
Owls are nocturnal animals. They sleep during the day and hunt at night. Their face is round and flattened. The eyes are large, allowing them to see well at a distance, even at night. An owl can turn his head 270 degrees and can thus look in all directions. Owls have a hooked beak and powerful claws. Two claws are directed forward and two backward. You cannot see the ears, they are holes that are sometimes covered with an ear cover. Ears should not be confused with the ear tufts above the eyes, that, for example, the long-eared owl has.
Most owls have a mix of brown, black, white and grey feathers. These colors provide camouflage, so owls can easily hide.

What should you do?

1. Sketch an owl on a branch with pencil, considering the characteristics from owls as discussed. 
2. Draw patterns on the body parts of the owl, with black markers in various thicknesses. By drawing different patterns you will recognize the individual body parts of the owl. Make parts darker by drawing patterns closer together. 
3. Color the eyes and beak yellow or orange.
4. Paint the background yellow with liquid watercolor paint. Make sure you don't touch the drawing, to avoid the ink will bleed. Therefore stay about a half a centimeter away from the owl. 
5. Paste your work on black background.

All works of art made by students of grade 5.

Building sandwiches

  

Texture, balance and variety were elements students concentrated on as they created this collage of a big sandwich! 

 

What do you need?

1. colored card board 
2. ribbed cardboard
3. leftovers of colored paper
4. yarn leftovers
5. fabric leftovers
6. pasta in different shapes
7. seeds and/or rice
8. scissors and glue

Discuss what kind of food students like on their sandwich and how to represent this. Examples: yellow paper with holes in it will represent cheese; red yarn can be ketchup and an enrolled piece of pink cotton is a slice of ham.

The artwork must partly be 3D, so do not paste everything just flat, but try to work spatial and let things overlap. 

What should you do?

1. Create a table cloth from leftovers of cotton or paper. 
2. Cut a plate and paste it on the table.
3. Cut two parts of a hamburger bun of ribbed cardboard. 
4. Now building can start!
5. Is there enough food on the sandwich? Close it with  the second piece of ribbed cardboard.

Works of art made in grade 4, 5 and 6. 

Autumn birches

You need: 

1. drawing sheets A3 size
2. painters tape in several widths
3. liquid watercolor paint in red, green and yellow 
4. brushes
5. tempera paint  
6. stipple brush
7. old shopping card/customer card
8. saucers and jars

Choose thick drawing paper,  to avoid ripping when you remove the tape . 

Look at birch trees. What do you see?   

 

• straight trunks
• trunks are white
• 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 the paint. 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.  Stipple leaves at the top of the trees using the stipple brush. Do not mix the colors, but use several colors at the brush at the same time. 

Step 5

Hang up! 

Works of art are made by students of grade 1. 

There's a ghost in my bedroom!

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

You need:

1. white drawing paper 
2. indian ink
3. dip pen
4. pencil
5. paper towel
6. 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, and fill the rest of the drawing in with various textures*. 
4. Paste the drawing on a black sheet.

* Look for a lesson on texture at this link: Exercise in drawing texture. 

Works of art made by students of grade 5. 

Positive negative pumpkin faces

You need:

1. black construction paper A4 
2. orange construction paper A5
3. ruler
4. pencil
5. scissors and glue
6. 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.

Wacky witches

You need:

1. charcoal
2. chalk pastels
3. drawing sheet 
4. black construction paper
5. hairspray

How do you recognize a witch? What animals or things do you associate with a witch? What does an angry witch look like? Think of characteristics like mouth, eyes and eyebrows.

Tell students how to use charcoal. Explain how we make differences in colors. Show how to use an eraser to erase the charcoal lines and a tissue or  to sweep out the color.

What should you do?

• Draw the contours of a witch face with charcoal. 
• Color the face with chalk pastel in a cool color. 
• Draw a mouth, eyes and nose with charcoal. 
• Add some typical witchy things like a cat, bat, spiderweb etc.
• Use hairspray to fix the drawing. 
• Stick the drawing on a black sheet. 

Works of art made by students of grade 4.

Which witch is this?

You need:

1. drawing sheet 
2. pencil
3. markers
4. white or silver pencil 
5. black paper for background

Start this the lesson with a class discussion about witches. How do you recognize a witch? What things belong to a witch? What can you say about the clothing of a witch?

What to do?

1. Draw with pencil the lower half of the body of a witch: skirt and legs. 
2. Draw things that belong to witches. 
3. Draw a horizon line at about 1/3 from the bottom. 
4. Color the drawing with markers. 
5. Color the background with markers or chalk pastel. 
6. Paste the artwork on a black background and decorate the rim with theme-related little drawings in white or silver pencil.

In the debriefing should be clear that you only need a half drawing to recognize a witch: Which witch is this?

All works of art made by students of grade 5.