Beautiful anemones

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size
2. tissue paper in different colours
3. brush
4. can with water

With tissue paper you can make beautiful flowers without painting! In this lesson I chose anemones, but any flower will work. To make an anemone, fold a tissue paper three times until you have a rectangle. This rectangle has six lows now. Cut two petals out of this rectangle; this makes twelve petals totally. Six petals make one anemone. Cut petals from different colours tissue paper. Cut small and bigger ones. Take the white sheet and wet the place for the first flower with a brush. Put the petals one by one around an imaginary white circle (this is for the heart of the flower) on the wet spot. The petals will tighten themselves on the wet drawing sheet. Stich all petals this way. Overlap is allowed, working on the edge too. Cut little circles (flowerhearts) out of black tissue paper and stick them with water. The tissue paper has started 'bleeding' yet. The brighter the colour of tissue paper, the better it bleeds. Light colors bleed less. The colours of the tissue paper will blend together. If all is well, you'll see rays from the black heart into the petals. If not, wet the flowers again with a brush and water. Be careful, petals might shuffle. Let the artwork dry a little. When it's still moist a bit, pull of all petals. Your beautiful anemones are ready!

Anemones with tissue paper

Print, without tissue paper

Landscape of tissue paper

You need:

1. tissue paper in several colours
2. wallpaper glue, made with extra water
3. glue brushes
4. white drawing paper A4 size

Look with the students at pictures of different landscapes: mountains, volcanic landscape, coastal landscape, river landscape, hills, flat landscape. Discuss the differences between those landscapes.

Students are going to make a landscape out of tissue paper. They may just tear the sheets, so no scissors! The landscapes have to be constructed from behind, so the front sheets have to be glued at last. While doing it this way, colours can be glued overlapping, which gives more tints. Explain the students to use white tissue paper to make colours lighter. The glaciers on the mountains in the example are created by not glueing the white tissue paper entirely. Dry parts will stay white, wet parts take over the colour that's underneath.

A spider and his web

In fall you will find beautiful spider webs in the garden and around the school. Especially when the morning dew is glistening on the wires in the sun, a web seems a work of art. In this lesson the students draw a spider web with a spider, after they first have looked carefully at those webs. How is the web built? How many basic threads do you see? What does a spider look like? How many legs has he? How do they look?

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 size cut lengthwise
2. crayons
3. water paint
4. brushes
5. jar with water
6. black finepointed marker or white pencil
7. coloured paper

Draw at the top of a half sheet a web with a white crayon (be sure the point is sharp). One of the base threads have to be drawin in the middle, because the spider will hang out there. Draw a spider with black crayon and connect him with the web by drawing the middle white base thread down. Paint the whole sheet with water paint in a colour you like. Use lots of water. Crayonlines will resist the paint. Let the work and see the dewdrops on the web! Glue the work on a coloured background. Draw the web further on the background, with black fineliner or white pencil.

Cats like Rosina Wachtmeister

Rosina Wachtmeister (1939, Austria)

Wachtmeister (1939) is an Austrian artist who is specialised in making collages with various. She uses often gold or silver metal paper in her work. The early work of Rosina Wachtmeister are sculptured puppets. She used these puppets in her own puppet theatre.

In 1974 Rosina Wachtmeister moved with her husband to Capena, near Rome. She gets inspired from daily things: the silence of Capena, the sun, her cats and music.

We look at some paintings from Wachtmeister and we name the distinctive characteristics:

1. she uses silver in every paiting
2. faces are divided into colour patches
3. she uses often warm colours
4. backgrounds are decorated cheerfully
5. figures are outlined with black or coloured lines
6. eyes are very expressive because of those (black or coloured) lines

You need:

1. white drawing paper A3 size
2. tempera in different colours, including silver
3. brushes
4. newspapers
5. jars with water
6. tissues to clean and dry the brushes

Students draw with pencil a quick sketch from one or more cats on their sheets and start painting right away, considering the characteristics of the style of Wachtmeister: silver paint, big eyes, warm colours, divided faces etc. Outlining the figures has to be done also with tempera and a thin brush. This has to be the last chore, of course. So you get a good separation between the foreground and background and you can remove some stains. If the paintings are dry, we stick them on a matching background sheet. And of course we sign our work, just like Wachtmeister, with a black signature!

Hot air balloons

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. markers
3. fineliner
4. watercolour paint
5. brushes
6. coloured paper for background
7. scissors and glue
8. yarn

Look at several photo's of hot air balloons and discuss what they look like: use of colour, shape, size, advertisements. Look at the baskets and discover that, when we look up in the air we' ll see the bottom of the baskets. We also note that hot air balloons look smaller when they're further away.
Students paint their white sheet light blue with watercolour paint, using lots of water. When the sheets are drying, balloons have to be drawn and coloured on another sheet: a big one, a midsize and one or two small ones. After this students have to draw some baskets, with silhouettes of people (use a black fineliner!). Cut the balloons and the baskets.
Paste the painted blue sheet on a background paper. Make a composition of the balloons with one or two overlaps. Use the frame too. Paste balloons and baskets, but do not paste the people. Just bow them a bit, as if they're looking over the edge of the baskets. Glue small pieces of yarn between balloons and baskets. Eventually clouds can be made out of cottonwool.
This is also a nice assignment for the whole class or a group of children.

Delfts blue plates

You need:

1. white paper plates without plastic coating
2. feltpens, fineliners of markers in different colours blue
3. examples from Delfts blue decoration

Delftware, or Delft pottery, denotes blue and white pottery made in and around the city of Delft (Netherlands) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Delftware became popular and was widely exported in Europe and even reached China and Japan. Chinese and Japanese potters made porcelain versions of Delftware for export to Europe. Delftware ranged from simple household items - with little or no decoration - to fancy artwork. Most of the Delft factories made sets of jars, the kast-stel set. Pictorial plates were made in abundance, illustrated with religious motifs, native Dutch scenes with windmilles and fishing boats, hunting scenes, landscapes and seascapes.

Nowadays there is still one factory in Delft that produces real Delftware: De Porceleyne Fles. All plates, vases, bowls, teacups, tiles etc. are painted by hand here. You'll find a lot of photograps on the website of Porceleyne Fles (online shop). See some of these photographs with the students and discuss what decorations they see. Discuss the different colours of blue and look how you can make a good illustration by just using blue. Show the students some plates with different edges and make them tell about the recurring motifs

What to do? Students will design their own Delfts blue plate with a regular pattern around the plate and a free drawing in the middle. They have to use markers, feltpens and fineliners in different shades of blue. First practice a bit on the back side of the plate to see how the ink will flow. The edge of the plate has notches. Count them to know how many notches your pattern must have.

Desert

You need:

1. brown construction paper A4 format
2. pastel crayons
3. hairspray
4. wood glue

Look with the students at photographs from deserts and discuss what they look like. What kind of plants do you see? What about the colours?

Sketch with a pencil a simple desert landscape with little details. Cover the lines with wood glue. Try this first on a another sheet. Wait until the glue is dry; it has to be transparant instead of white. Colour your drawing with pastel crayons. Use different colours together and make sure you blend them with your fingers. Fix your drawing with hairspray.

Lines in motion

You need:

1. white drawing sheets A4 format
2. grey pencil
3. black fineliner
4. coloured markers

A lesson to experience how lines can accentuate a movement. Draw with a pencil four or five figures in motion on the paper. Make them simple, just out of lines and circles. Watch movements with the students by asking one of them to show some movements. Look especially to the limbs. Trace the figures with a black fineliner, leaving the inside of the circles white. Draw lines around the figures with markers in two colours. Try this first on a piece of paper to see how the two colours flow together when reaching eachother. The lines will become more and more smooth, accentuating the motion from the figures. I chose two colours close to eachother. Less spectacular, but less messy also!

My collection from the sea

Made by a student of grade 6

You need:

1. white drawingpaper A4 size
2. aquarel pencils or watercolour paint
3. brushes and water
4. black paper
5. scissors and glue
6. black fine marker

After summer holiday it's fun to draw what you've found on the beach: shells, starfish, crabs etc. Divide a white sheet in four strips of 7 cm. Draw horizon lines in those strips. Draw several things you may have found on the beach and sketch as lightly as possible. Colour the shells with watercolour paint or aquarel pencils, trying to make shades by diluting the colours more or less. Paint the beach yellow/gold and the air light blue. When dry, outline the shells and horizon with a black fine marker. Cut the four strips and glue them with 1 cm between them on a black piece of paper.

Dutch canal houses

Made by Anne, 10 years old

You need:

1. white drawing paper A4 size
2. indian ink or fine black marker
3. dip pen

Dutch canal houses are famous for their facades: stepped gable, neck gable, bell gable, clock gable or spout gable. Search the internet for photographs from canal houses and discuss the features of canal houses: the facades, the stairs, symmetry, windows, ornaments, shutters. 

Let students draw a line on their sheet about 5 cm from below. This is the canal. Sketch the houses lightly with a grey pencil. Indicate the places of windows, stairs, doors and shutters. Draw the houses with indian ink.

At the end stick all drawings together to get a long street full of canal houses.