Part of the table cloth
Monday, October 12, 2009
Polka dots from Staphorst, Holland
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Ghosts in the air
- black construction paper A4 size
- leftover cardboard
- scissors
- white chalk pastel
- hairspray
- white pencil
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Pumpkins in moonlight
You need:
- black constructionpaper A4 format
- pastel crayons
- pumpkins or pictures of pumpkins
- hairspray
- papertowels
- construction paper for background
Look with the kids to some brought pumpkins or pictures of them. Discuss shape, texture, size, colours, stem and leaves. Children have to draw at least two pumpkins, and one of them has to overlap another. Kids have to use pastel crayons on black construction paper. Tell them working with pastels will give a lot of smudge: be careful with smudgy fingers. Wipe them on a towell, and not on your artwork! Tell kids also to mix different colours. This will deepen the colours. Using brightr colours on dark ones will suggest the moonlight!
When the artworks are finished, you have to fix it with hairspray. Glue the work on a green or orange construction paper.
Made by students of 11-12 years old
Monday, September 28, 2009
Beautiful anemones
- white drawing sheet A4 size
- tissue paper in different colours
- brush
- 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!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Landscape of tissue paper
- tissue paper in several colours
- wallpaper glue, made with extra water
- glue brushes
- white drawing paper A4 size
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.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A spider and his web
You need:
- white drawing sheet A4 size cut lengthwise
- crayons
- water paint
- brushes
- jar with water
- black finepointed marker or white pencil
- coloured paper
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Cats like Rosina Wachtmeister
- she uses silver in every paiting
- faces are divided into colour patches
- she uses often warm colours
- backgrounds are decorated cheerfully
- figures are outlined with black or coloured lines
- eyes are very expressive because of those (black or coloured) lines
- white drawing paper A3 size
- tempera in different colours, including silver
- brushes
- newspapers
- jars with water
- tissues to clean and dry the brushes
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Hot air balloons
- white drawing paper A4 size
- markers
- fineliner
- watercolour paint
- brushes
- coloured paper for background
- scissors and glue
- yarn
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
- white paper plates without plastic coating
- feltpens, fineliners of markers in different colours blue
- 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.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Desert
- brown construction paper A4 format
- pastel crayons
- hairspray
- wood glue
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:
- white drawing sheets A4 format
- grey pencil
- black fineliner
- 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!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
My collection from the sea
- white drawingpaper A4 size
- aquarel pencils or watercolour paint
- brushes and water
- black paper
- scissors and glue
- black fine marker
Dutch canal houses
Made by Anne, 10 years old
You need:
- white drawing paper A4 size
- indian ink or fine black marker
- dip pen
Monday, August 31, 2009
Seahorse
- white drawing sheet A4 format
- watercolour paint
- white crayon
- brushes
- salt
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.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Warm sun, cool moon
- black paper A4 format
- pencils
- 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.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Funny fishes
You need:
- white drawing paper (A4 format)
- water paint
- 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.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Famous name
- white drawing sheet
- black marker
- wasco crayons
- 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
- white sheet
- black marker
- wasco crayons
- 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.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Country vanes
You need:
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.













