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.

Seahorse

You need:

1. white drawing sheet A4 format
2. watercolour paint
3. white crayon
4. brushes
5. salt

Show various photos of seahorses and discuss the characteristics of these remarkable animals. Children draw a seahorse with a white crayon on a white sheet. Details should also be drawn with the white crayon. The seahorse has to be painted with watercolour paint and a small brush. You may touch de lines, but do not cross them.

When ready, paint the background with a large brush, watercolour paint and lots of water. Try different colours blue or green (by adding water) and make sure they mix up a bit - wet on wet technique. Sprinkle salt on the background while it is still wet. The salt will absorb water and it gives a nice effect. When the drawing is completely dry, you can wipe the salt with a clean hand.

Warm sun, cool moon

You need:

1. black paper A4 format
2. pencils
3. gold and silver coloured markers

What colour is the sun? Do you see warm or cold colours? What colour is the moon? And the rays of the moon? How come you see the yellow moon often as cold? How would you use the colours gold and silver in the sun and the moon? All these questions can be asked in a class discussion about the sun and the moon and the differences between them. The children draw a circle on black paper around a saucer or pot. This circle is a face of a sun and a face of a part of the moon. Using warm and cool colours these two parts should me coloured. Met behulp van warme en koude kleuren worden beide helften ingekleurd. The rays of the sun and moon should clearly differ. If the colouring is finished, the parts of the sun should be outlined with gold marker, and the moon with silver marker. The backgrounds from the sun and the moon should be different too.

Funny fishes

You need:

1. white drawing paper (A4 format)
2. water paint
3. black marker

Divide the sheet in nine rectangles from 10 to 7 cm. Draw a fish or shell on a small piece of cardboard that fits in the rectangle. Cut out the fish or shell, this is your template. Outline that mall in all rectangles.

Choose three colours to paint the figures. You may make patterns in them. Paint the backgrounds with the same three colours and make patterns if you want. Outline everything (fishes, patters and rectangles) with a black marker.

Famous name

You need:

1. white drawing sheet
2. black marker
3. wasco crayons
4. black sheet for background

Write your name with a black marker several times on a white sheet. Upside down, from the top to the bottom, it doesn't matter. Write your names disorderly, taking care the letters will mix up.

When your sheet is full enough, choose a couple of colours you like. Colour just the white spots who are completely surrounded by black lines. This might be small spots from the letters, but they could be tall as well because they are between the names.

Glue your work on a black background.

Your name in a frame

You need:

1. white sheet
2. black marker
3. wasco crayons
4. black construction paper for background

Another fun idea with your own name!

Draw four diagonal lines on your white sheet to make five compartments. Use capital letters to write your name in the compartments, and take there that the upper and bottom side of the letters will touch the lines.

Colour the letters with a black marker. Colour the compartments with crayons. Glue your drawing on a black sheet.

Radial name design

You need:

• white drawing sheet from 21 cm by 21 cm
• black marker
• black fineliner
• black or coloured construction paper for background

There are many fun things to do with your own name! Draw a spot in the middle of the sheet (use a ruler!) and draw an even amount of lines to the sides of the sheet. In the example are ten lines, producing nine compartments. Write your name in capitals within a compartment, while the bottom and upper side of the characters reach the lines. Colour the characters with a black marker.

Then write your name with a fineliner as often as you can in small characters in the next compartment. You may write horizontally of diagonally, as you wish. You can even write in squares.

Fill the compartments alternate with big and small names. If you like it, you can colour the compartments with the big names with wasco crayons.

Country vanes

You need:

1. white drawing paper (A4 format)
2. felt pens
3. black fineliner

Each country has its own specific things: an anthem, a flag, one language, national food, a certain building, an event. What do you think when you think the Netherlands? Of course there are the requisite stereotypes, like wooden shoes - no, we don't walk on them anymore! Yet the wooden shoe is something special about Holland. In this lesson children will make a vane, a little flag with characteristics about a self chosen country. The vane should have four distinctive things to recognize a country, so other children will instantly know to which country the vane belongs.

Discuss with the children some examples from countries and significant things who belong to that country.

After this children choose a country. In their table groups the children help eachother to consider the four typical things for the chosen countries.

Vanes come in different forms. Show some forms on the digital blackboard. The vane has to be symmetrical. To avoid ugly wrinkles, it's better to divide the sheet with thin lines in four pieces. After this, outline a symmetrical vane.

Draw four different things in the compartments and colour it with felt pens. Outline every drawing with a fineliner.

Graffiti

Juf Lisette is the maker of this lesson! You need:

1. Grey drawing sheet
2. Wasco
3. White drawing paper
4. Felt pens
5. Scissors, glue

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is sometimes regarded as a form of art and other times regarded as unsightly damage or unwanted. All children get a grey sheet and some white sheets. To get a wall texture, use wall bricks to scratch over with wasco crayons. Cut those bricks and glue them on the grey paper sheet.

Design your own name in graffiti characters and colour it with felt pens. Cut it out and glue it on your brick wall. Of course children can choose for a slogan of a pop artist instead of their name.

Graffiti, made by children from 10-11 years old

Sunny faces

You need:

1. white piece of paper 20 by 20 cm
2. brushes
3. watercolour paint
4. jar with water
5. black marker

After talking about warm and cool colours, children have to divide their sheet in four squares. Outline a dish exactly in the middle of the sheet. Draw a sunny face with eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, eyebrows and eyelashes. Don't draw too small, because those parts have to be painted and outlined later.

Use watercolour paint to colour your sunny face. Cool colours for the background, warm colours for the sun. The four parts of the face have to be coloured with different warm colours. The same for the background: use four different cool colours. When the work is dry, outline each part with a black marker. Mark the dividing lines also.

Opart like Vaserely

You need:

1. white paper
2. markers
3. ruler and pencil
4. charcoal

Show the children works from Victor Vasarely. What do you see? Do you recognize the optical illusion? How did Vasarely make this? Do you see the shapes coming out from the background? What colours and shapes has been used? We call this opart or optical art. Tell children they are going to make an opart drawing today. Every child becomes a white sheet of paper and starts with outlining one or more round objects like a lid or a dish. Draw curved lines from above to below and from the right to the left. Draw a grid pattern behind the circle with squares from 1,5 to 1,5 cm. Teach children how to do this, it appeared not to be that easy...:) When finished, colour the squares in the circle like a checkerboard. 1. Go slow and think first, a mistake is easily made. 2. No two colours should be right next to eachother (side to side) 3. Colours should always be corner to corner with eachother To accentuate depth, we used a piece of charcoal and drew a shadow around the ball.

Beautiful butterflies

You need:

1. white drawing paper
2. tempera
3. brushes
4. glue and scissors
5. coloured paper for background

Paint with a small brush white tempera to create . Niet te kleine vakken maken, dat is lastig inkleuren later. Door het mengen van kleuren en wit worden de vakken gevuld. Vertel de kinderen dat ze de verf niet verdunnen, om felle kleuren te krijgen. Ook na het spoelen van de kwast moet deze goed worden drooggemaakt in een papieren doekje. Vouw een tweede tekenvel dubbel en teken tegen de vouw aan een of meer halve vlinders. Knip deze uit. Verf ze in dezelfde kleuren als de achtergrond, maar blijf daarbij een halve centimeter van de rand af zodat je een wit randje overhoudt. Trek met witte verf dunne lijntjes rondom het lijf van de vlinder en de versieringen als de verf voldoende aangedroogd is. Plak de gekleurde achtergrond op een groter vel wit papier. Plak dan de vlinders op, waarbij je ook over de witte rand kunt gaan. Doe alleen lijm achter het lijf, zodat de vlinders iets van het pier gaan afstaan voor een ruimtelijke effect.

Black and white prints

You need:

1. two pieces of linoleum from 10 x 10 cm
2. lino knive
3. mat
4. block printing ink in black and white
5. flat piece of glass
6. linoleum roller
7. white paper A4 size
8. black papier A4 size
9. lino press

For this artwork you need two square pieces of linoleum. Draw simple patterns or simple figures. Cut from the first piece of lino the figures out and leave the background (negative). Cut from the second piece of lino just the background out while leaving the figures (positive). Press both works several times in black ink on white paper and white ink on black paper. Choose the best out of those prints. Paste the white prints on black sheets and the black prints on white sheets. Paste the black print on white paper sheets on a larger black sheet. Paste the white print on black paper sheets on a larger white sheet. Finally glue the black and white sheets together.

Made by students from 10-11 years old