vrijdag 11 september 2009

Birthday calendar, like Wayne Thiebaud

You need:

  1. white sheets A4 format
  2. colour pencils
At the beginning of a schoolyear, our students make their own birthday calendar. This is a good reason to show and discuss some paintings from Wayne Thiebaud. Each child draws his own birthday cake, surrounded by his birthdate and first name. Arround this drawing they have to draw a frame as broad as the ruler and draw festive stuff like little cakes, lollipops, candy, little flags, presents etc.

dinsdag 8 september 2009

The spirit in the bottle

You need:

  1. white drawing paper A4 size
  2. black construction paper A 4 size
  3. watercolour paint
  4. brushes
  5. salt
  6. scissors and glue
  7. oilpastel crayons

The Spirit in the Bottle is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.

The fairy tale, shortly: A woodcutter saved his money and sent his son to school, but before his son's studies were complete, his money ran out. The son insisted on borrowing an axe from a neighbor and coming to help his father in the woods. When his father rested, he walked about and discovered a bottle with a voice coming from it. He opened it, and a spirit sprang out and declared it would break his neck. The son said first he had to see that the spirit really came out of the bottle; the spirit went back in to show him, and the son stopped it up again. The spirit pleaded with him and offered to make him rich. The son decided it was worth the risk and opened it. The spirit gave him a plaster that would cure all wounds and a stick that would turn iron to silver. The son tried the plaster by cutting a tree and using it, and it worked. He turned the axe to silver, and it bent on a tree. He persuaded his father to come home with him, because he did not know the way, and sold the silver for far more money than was needed to repay the neighbor for the axe. He went back to his studies, and with the plaster became a famous doctor.

(From http://www.wikipedia.org/) You'll find the he full story at http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/99spiritinbottle.html

Paint the white sheet with blue and green watercolour paint, using lots of water. Make sure the different colours mix up. Sprinkle salt on the background while it is still wet. The salt will absorb water and it gives a nice effect. When the painting is completely dry, wipe the salt with a clean hand. Cut a circle out of white paper and paint it yellow/ocher with watercolour paint. Let dry. Draw a spirit at the back of the sheet and cut it. Draw a face on it. Take a black sheet and draw a bottle with white oilpastel. Draw blades of grass at the bottom of the sheet around the bottle. Paste the spirit and the moon on the black paper.

zaterdag 5 september 2009

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.

dinsdag 1 september 2009

Remembering summer

You need:
  1. square drawing sheet 20 x 20 cm
  2. colour pencils
Divide the sheet in four squares. Draw in every square your own summer memory! Decorate the edges in four different ways.

maandag 31 augustus 2009

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.

vrijdag 28 augustus 2009

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.

woensdag 26 augustus 2009

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.

dinsdag 25 augustus 2009

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.

zaterdag 1 augustus 2009

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.

Picknick quilt

What kind of things do you think of when you hear the word summer? Which of those things are easy to be drawn? An ice cream will be easy to draw, but a drawn beach will be less clear as part of a quilt. Is it better to choose objects that belong to the beach such as shells or beach toys. Each group receives a large sheet of coloured paper and white squares of paper from 11 by 11 cm. We're drawing summerquilts together!

Discuss how you can get a group work: choosing matching colours or choosing the same subject.

You need:

  1. pencils
  2. sheets of paper from 10 by 10 cm
  3. scissors and glue
  4. big cardboard for background

Every member of the group makes some drawings for a summerquilt. Those little drawings have to be coloured with colour pencil. When all drawings are ready, they have to be glued on the coloured background. Possibly the edges of the large sheets can be decorated with sticky buttons or drawn patterns.

Picknickkleed, door Oscar, Ozan, Yorn, Fabian en Richard, groep 7

zondag 12 juli 2009

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

dinsdag 7 juli 2009

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.

zondag 5 juli 2009

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.

zaterdag 4 juli 2009

Crazy monkey's

You need:
  1. white drawing sheets
  2. colour pencils
  3. scissors and glue
  4. green or yellow sheets for background

We always have to laugh about monkey's; maybe because they look so much like us!

In this lesson we're going to draw monkey's and add some extra funny details. Look at monkey photographs first. What do they look like - lenth of arms and legs, size of the head, eyes, nose etc. CHildren draw a frame on their sheet about 2 cm from the sides. The instruction is: draw a hanging monkey with two or three funny details. Examples: an Ipod, clothes, or jewellery . Draw your monkey as big as possible, but stay within the frame. Next: draw a jungle background, with climbing plants, tree trunks, big leaves and exotic fruit. Vervolgens wordt een oerwoudachtige achtergrond getekend: slingerplanten, grote varens, takken, boomstammen, grote bladeren, vruchten. Some of those leaves or branches may stick out of the frame. Colour the drawing with natural colours. Make sure the complete sheet is coloured, there will be no more white! Cut out the drawing (watch for the outsticking details) and glue it on a green or yellow sheet.

woensdag 24 juni 2009

Show me your shoes

Made by Anne, 10 years old

You need:

  1. white drawingpaper
  2. coloured pencils
  3. scissors
  4. glue
  5. coloured paper for background
Ask children to take their most beautiful, most colourful or most favourite shoes. Put one of your shoes in front of you on your table. Look carefully and draw your shoe on a white sheet. Colour it firmly and cut it out. Glue the shoe on a coloured sheet that matches to the colours of the shoe.

By Jetse, 12 years old

zondag 21 juni 2009

Guardian angels of the woods

You need:
  1. white drawing paper
  2. colour pencils

After telling a story about the protector of the woods, who hide themselves between the trees and bushes, children draw their own wood guardian angels. Those can be anything they think of: an angel, a ghost, a fairy or maybe even an animal. The colours should of course be natural colours: green, yellow, red, brown and mixtures of them. Hide your guardian angel between the trees, drawing a lot of leaves around it.

maandag 15 juni 2009

Comic strip language

You need:

  1. white drawing paper from 10 by 10 centimetres
  2. white drawing paper from 30 by 30 centimetres
  3. tempera paint
  4. felt pens
  5. black markers
  6. brushes

Comic strip drawers use a special way to reproduce sounds. They realise a special effect with letters or words. We call this an onomatopeia or sound-imitation.

There is always a black frame around the comic strip pictures. Sometimes you'll see the a part of the drawing outside of the frame. Ask sour students to take their favourite comic strips. Look for examples of sound-imitations and talk about them: SPLASH (falling water), TOINK (someone who bumps his head). Those sound-imitations are often combined with a movement or direction. You can notice this if you look at the shape or direction of the letters, or even at the letters themselves. Often you'll see matching symbols around a word, like litte stars for someone who bumped his head or drops of water around the word SPLASH. Students design a comic strip picture with a sound. They have to draw a concept first on the little sheet. When finished and satisfied with the concept, students take a bigger sheet from 30 with 30 centimentres. On this sheet they have to draw a frame (use a ruler!) about 1 centimetre from the sides. Outside this frame the drawing has to remain white, like in comic strips. After this children have to enlarge their concept. If it is to difficult, they can draw a grid on their sheet first (squares from 3 by 3 centimetres). Drawing and words have to be coloured with feltpens. The background and other great parts can be painted with tempera. Tell children to choose bright colours, so don't mix to much. At last outline all lines with a black marker.