donderdag 7 november 2019

Transport - like Hundertwasser


Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000) was an Austrian artist and architect who is best known for the colorful buildings he designed, built with attention to the environment and natureThe buildings of Hundertwasser are very recognizablestraight lines are missingthere is use of bright colors and many of his buildings have typical turrets. The influence of architect Gaudi is obvious.
The paintings of Hundertwasser have exuberant colours too and mainly undulating lines.

Show buildings of Hundertwasser on the digital board. Discuss the salient  features: bright coloursundulating linesThen show some paintings and discuss the things that stand out:

 the use of small areas outlined with black
 no straight lines, usually parallel lines
 recurring spiral shapes
 bright colours

Tell students they are going to draw means of transport in the style of Hundertwasser. 

You need:
  1. drawing sheet
  2. pencil
  3. markers
Draw a car, plane, boat or something you think is a mean of transport. Fill it with lines and patterns like Hundertwasser did. Cut your drawing and paste all means of transport on a great colored sheet. 

Source: Dutch website Laat maar zien. 

woensdag 6 november 2019

Op art - like Henrique Matos

You need:
  1. white drawing sheet A4 size
  2. liquid water colour
  3. jar with water
  4. compasses
  5. ruler
  6. pencil
  7. black waterproof markers
Henrique José Teixeira Matos is a Portugese painter. He is born in 1961 in Oporto.  Matos painted landscapes, portraits and abstract works, but is best known for his op-art work.
Show pictures of Matos's work on Wikimedia Commons. Look especially the op-art works and discuss what you see.

More op-art lessons on this blog can be seen following the link Op-art.

Paint a white sheet of paper with liquid watercolour and a lot of water a plain background.


Drip some liquid water colour on the surface while it is still wet. Use more water if the colours won't flow. Leave the sheet to dry.


Use compasses to draw some small circles (2 cm average) on the sheet. Draw wider circkels around them. Fill the sheet with those circles and half ones near the edges.


Draw lines from the middle of the circles to the edges. Be sure it's an even number of lines and  Kkeep the lines as much as possible equidistant from each other. Color the squares alternating with a black marker or pencil.


Op art hands


You need:

  1. drawing sheet
  2. pencil
  3. ruler
  4. markers 
Draw a grid on the sheet with squares from 2 cm by 2cm. Draw your hand or an object with a pencil. Color this alternately with black an a color of your choice.  Color the background squares with the same colors, but so that the checkerboard pattern reverses.

donderdag 13 juni 2019

Where Keith Haring meets Piet Mondriaan


You need:
  1. drawing sheet A2 size
  2. black strips 1,5 cm wide
  3. colored construction paper in red, yellow and blue
  4. ruler
  5. scissors
  6. glue
  7. black marker
This is a teamwork lesson for two students. 

Draw squares and rectangles of various sizes on the colored paper. Make sure they are straight: start from a right angle and measure carefully. Cut the squares and rectangles and spread them on the white sheet.  Make sure same colors do not touch each other and stick them. 
Continue with the black strips. Decide by yourself how many strips and where you want them, but there are four requirements:
  • the strips must be sticked straight! (use your ruler)
  • black strips must be sticked around all colored area's
  • use the black strips to create white area's (squares and rectangles) 
  • don't use to much glue. Let some strips stay loose so you can put a Haring figure behind it
Draw three or more Keith Haring  characters on the colored paper. Cut them and paste them on the Mondriaan sheet. Be sure there is no yellow character on a yellow area. 
Outline the characters with a black marker and draw some 'move stripes' around them.

donderdag 9 mei 2019

Picture book illustration


Students of grade 6 made this illustration. After a good study of the original illustration in a Dutch picturebook, they made a list of required materials to use for this artwork. The faces and arms are painted, the clothes and curtains are cut out of fabric, the wallpaper comes from a sample book for wallpaper and the flags are from scraps of paper.


zaterdag 9 februari 2019

Popart like Burton Morris

You need:
  1. several colours construction paper
  2. black cardboard 20 by 20 cm
  3. coloured cardboard 20 by 20 cm
  4. scissors
  5. glue
  6. black thick marker
During our USA trip in the summer of 2009, I visited in the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, There I saw the artwork of Burton Morris for the first time: five paintings of cola bottles in pop-art style surrounded by light blue bubbles. So beautiful! Now I found a way to do this in school. And I think I'm the first blogger with a Morris lesson!
Burton Morris (Pittsburgh, 1964) is an American pop-art artist. He is influenced by pop-art artists from the 60's and 70's, like Warhol, Lichtenstein and Haring. Now he is one of the most famous modern post pop-art artist. Morris's work shows a contemporary twist to traditional pop-art. His work is cheerful, energetic and colourful. His characteristic lines with the bright colours give his work a fantastic energy. Morris's work is known of tv-series like Friends and also appears in major advertising campaigns by U.S. companies like AT & T, Pepsi and Heinz.
Show artwork of Morris on the digital board. Discuss the features: bright colours, black outlines, little detail, movement by little lines, white lines that suggest light and the distinctive black star shape around or in much of his work. Students are going to make an artwork in the style of Burton Morris with the subject: Valentine's Day.
Step 1. Take two colours cardboard: black for the edge and one colour for the background. take a construction paper for the big heart.
Step 2. Cut the edges of the background cardboard sloping away, to make a sort of rug. You have to cut at least 1 cm around.
Step 3. Cut a large heart from the second coloured cardboard. Cut white 'light lines' from a white sheet for on and around the big heart.
Step 4. Cut some smaller hearts from several colours of construction paper. Cut white 'light lines' and paste them on the little hearts; all on the same side.
Step 5. Paste the big heart on the coloured cardboard. Paste the light lines on the heart and around it.
Step 6. Cut long triangles from the sides of the rug, the 'flashy stripes'. Paste the rug on the black cardboard.
Step 7. Paste the small hearts around the big heart; you may k de kleine hartjes rondom het grote hart, where you can go over the triangles. Outline the small hearts with a black marker.
Step 8. Cut the black background away, leaving about 2 mm on the edges.
Step 9. Paste the work on a coloured sheet (A4 size) and cut it into a square.
Made by students of grade 4 and 5

zaterdag 12 januari 2019

Cat on head - like Corneille


Made by a student of grade 3
You need:
  1. drawing sheet A3 size
  2. oil pastels
  3. liquid watercolor paint
  4. brushes
Corneille painted often cats, birds and women. There are some paintings where he painted the cat on the head of a woman!
Show Corneille paintings on the digital board or use google: 'Corneille woman cat'.

Who of you has a cat at home? Does it ever lie with you? Does your cat ever lie on your head?
Look at these artworks. What do you see? Why would the painter left the cat's eyes white?  Do the women on the paintings have hair? 

Draw a head on your sheet with oilpastel (dark color). Maybe your own head, but you may choose another head too. Draw a cat sitting, standing or lying down on the head. The cat looks like hair! What hairstyle it is, had to do with the position of the cat. 
Color your drawing with bright colors. Trace the outlines with a dark color if necessary and paint the background with liquid watercolor paint. 

Made by a student of grade 3

There are more lessons about Corneille on this blog! Use the search function. 

vrijdag 11 januari 2019

Corneille China

Made by a student of grade 1
You need:
  1. paper plates)
  2. black markers
  3. acrylic paint
  4. small brushes 
  5. jars with water and paper towels
Show some pictures of animals in Corneille's artwork. What do you see? What can you say about the colors? Do you like it? Why or why not? What animals do you see on the china?

Choose an animal. Use a black marker to draw it on your plate. You can also decide to draw just the head of the animal. Your drawing has to be large, it has to fill almost the entire plate. Can you think of anything else? Does the moon shine? Is your animal with others? Or is it in the grass? You can make it!

Color your drawing with acrylic paint and a brush. Choose bright colors and make sure it's opaque. Rinse your brush with each new color and dry it well in a paper towel; the acrylic paint shound not get wet.

Trace the marker lines again if necessary but only if the paint is really dry.

More information about Corneilla and the Cobra group on this blog:  Lesson 1 en lesson 2.

woensdag 5 december 2018

Happy new year!

Made by students of grade 6
You need:
  1. white drawing sheet A3 size
  2. water paint color
  3. brushes
  4. liquid water color paint
  5. crayons
Draw some Dutch canal houses and color them with water color paint. Use crayons to draw fireworks. Then paint the sky dark blue with liquid water color leaving  the edges white. 

dinsdag 4 december 2018

We wish you a merry Xmas

You need:
  1. green construction paper, 20 by 20 cm
  2. white tempera paint
  3. white pencil
  4. fine markers in white and black
  5. colored markers
Draw staves on the sheet using a white pencil. Make fingerprints for the snowmen: use the tip of your finger for the head, use your thumb for the body. Wait till the paint has dried. Use a black fine marker to draw brooms, branches=arms, stones=eyes+mouth. Draw the carrot = nose with orange marker and draw caps of hats on some of the snowmen.
Finally, draw the text of We wish you a merry Xmas (or another Christmas song) under the staves. 


Source: 50 Xmas things to make and do, Usborne

maandag 3 december 2018

Silver and white Xmas tree

Made by a student of grade 4

You need:
  1. green construction paper
  2. silver marker
  3. white pencil
Draw the trunk of a tree in the middle of a sheet, starting at the bottom and ending about 2 inches from the top. Color the trunk with silver marker. 
Draw lines from the trunk to the right and left. Don't use a ruler! The lines become shorter to create a triangle.  
Draw Xmas decorations on the branches using a white pencil. 

zondag 2 december 2018

Colourful Christmas trees


This lesson is seen more than 133,000 times. 
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And if you want to make money out of this lesson, realise it's my work. 
So ask me before sending it to Teachers pay teachers, Twinkle and all that other sites. 

You need:
  1. two drawing sheets A4 size
  2. watercolour paint
  3. brushes
  4. jar with water
  5. tissue paper
  6. scissors
  7. glue
  8. ruler
  9. pencil
  10. gold or silver marker
  11. white correction marker
  12. glitter
Paint a background for the Christmas trees with water paint. Use different colours and let them blend into each other. Use plenty of water for nice bright colours.
Choose three colours of tissue paper. Fold the sheets several times and cut triangles and squares. Take a sheet of drawing paper and make it wet with a brush and water. Lay the pieces of tissue paper on this wet sheet. If the tissue paper is not wet enough, it won't bleed. Then make it wet again with a brush with water. Fill the sheet with these tissue paper parts and leave it to dry. Remove the pieces of tissue paper from the sheet when it is completely dry. The sheet will look like this:
Cut long triangles from the sheet that was coloured with tissue paper. You may use the schedule above (based on A4 size sheet of 21 by 29 cm - half cm will remain on both sides then). You can cut a piece from the bottom of the triangles if you want trees of various heights. Paste these three trees with overlap on the water paint background. Don't paste the trees all at the same height, so you get depth. Cut some smaller triangles from the left overs if you want more trees.
Outline the trees with silver or gold marker. Draw a simple branch structure. Draw the strains with brown pencil or use the metallic pins. Draw snowflakes around and on the trees with a white (correction) marker or use chips from the punch. rond en op de bomen. Paste the artwork on a coloured background. Sprinkle some glitter on the forest floor.
All artwork is made by students of 11-12 years old

zondag 11 november 2018

Catching leaves

Made by students of grade 4
You need:
  1. white drawing sheet A3 size
  2. oil pastels
  3. liquid water color paint
  4. brushes
Students trace their hands (thumbs point to each other) on the bottom of the sheet and color them with oil pastels. They draw swirling autumn leaves above the hands and color them with oil pastels too. Paint the background with diluted liquid water color paint and leave some space on the edges.


woensdag 3 oktober 2018

Collage like Karel Appel (CoBrA)

On black background, made by a student of grade 5

You need:
  1. black or white drawing sheet A3 size
  2. colored construction paper, 5 colors for each student 
  3. glue
  4. black tempera paint
  5. small brush
  6. liquid water color paint for background 
Karel Appel (1921-2006) was a Dutch expressionistic painter and sculptor, famous as one of the founders of the CoBrA movement. CoBrA stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
CoBrA artists were inspired by children's drawings and the art of mentally disturbed.

Tell your students about abstract and figurative art. Show abstract and figurative artworks and ask which word belongs to them.
Then view some of Karel Appel's works: Little Boy, Some people together, Blue faced beast and Saarbrücken (Google pictures). Are these figurative or abstract? Put your hand on the eyes of the painting. Is the artwork still figurative? Students will discover the Appel's art is very close to abstract. 

When we see Karel Appel, we discover:
  • large surfaces
  • bright colors
  • a few colors
  • thick black lines
Students tear (using two thumbs and two fingers, show well how they have to tear)  organic shapes from the construction paper.  It's absolutely not the intention to tear a human of animal. The shapes have to be 'just like that'.  Some students will smuggle a little bit and stick an eye somewhere. Then squeeze an eye :) but do not accept clearly laid human figures.

When they have torn enough pieces, students make a composition of the shapes and paste them on the black or white sheet. The pieces may also be stuck over or on top of each other. Then the most exciting part of this lesson: what do I see in my collage? Ask a classmate to keep your work up. What do you see? Turn the work 90 degrees, and again and again. Do you see an animal or a human?
Use black paint and a thin brush to draw lines on your artwork so that your human of animal is also visible to others. Not too much lines, there must be some guesswork too!

On a painted backgrond, made by student of grade 5

dinsdag 25 september 2018

Mondriaan: from 2D into 3D

You need:
  1. white construction paper  A4 size
  2. ruler
  3. pencil
  4. colored construction paper in yellow, blue and red
  5. black marker
  6. cutting mat and cutter 
  7. glue
Show artworks of Piet Mondriaan and De Stijl and discuss them.

Fold the white sheet in 5 columns. The columns don't have the be the same width. Divide the sheet with pencil and ruler in three rows (thin, the lines have to be erased later).
Cut rectangle and squares out of colored paper. Make sure they are not wider as the columns. Paste  the rectangles and squares between the folded lines and outline them using a ruler and a black marker. Connect each one with its 'neighbour' with a marker. The lines should be horizontal or vertical.

Then cut two horizontal lines from the start of column 2 towards the end of column 4 (see picture).

zaterdag 22 september 2018

Mondriaan cube



You need:
  1. white cardboard
  2. ruler
  3. pencil
  4. cutting mat and knife
  5. markers
  6. glue
After a lesson about the work of Piet Mondriaan, students draw a template of a cube (nice goal for the math lesson!). The surfaces are 8 by 8 cm, the stick edges are 1 cm.

Cut the template with a cutting knife. Use a black fine marker to draw squares at 1/2-1 cm from the edges. Within these squares you draw straight lines to get some rectangles and squares. Color these using Mondriaan colors: red, yellow and blue. Leave some surfaces white.


Fold the stick edges and paste them to get the Mondriaan cube!



zaterdag 15 september 2018

Sawing like Piet Mondriaan


Made by a student of grade 3
You need:
  1. black construction paper
  2. plywood  
  3. ruler and pencil
  4. tempera paint in primary colors kleuren + white
  5. brush
  6. coping saw
  7. sandpaper
  8. glue
Divide a rectangular piece of thin plywood into rectangles and squares using ruler and pencil and saw them. Place every piece directly on the right spot the black construction paper. All pieces have to form a rectangle again. 

Sand the edges of pieces. Paint the pieces in primary colors and white. Past them on the black sheet. 

donderdag 13 september 2018

Patterned trees collage

You need:
  1. white drawing sheet A3 size
  2. liquid water color paint
  3. brush
  4. construction paper in several colors
  5. scissors and glue
  6. black fine marker
Fold the sheet in two. Paint the upper half blue, the  lower half green. Leave the edges white. 
Cut several shapes from construction paper: ovals, 'clouds', circles.   
Use a fineliner to draw the trunk and fill the shapes with a variety of patterns.  
Paste the shapes on the painted sheet and be sure the shapes overlap each other to suggest depth.

woensdag 12 september 2018

Portfolio: Bad Hair Day

You need:
  1. white sheets
  2. liquid watercolor paint
  3. straws
  4. oil pastel crayons
How to draw a face? We used the website Wikihow. Students draw their own face on a large white sheet and color it with oil pastels. Drop liquid water color in several colors above the head and blow it in different directions using straws. 


On the photo our proud third grade students with their portfolio's in which we collected all the artwork of this school year.

donderdag 23 augustus 2018

The very lonely firefly


You need:

  1. black construction paper
  2. tempera paint
  3. brushes
  4. gold and silver markers
  5. pencils
Book: The very lonely firefly from Eric Carle (also to be found on YouTube)

Students use white tempera to paint two or more jars at the bottom of the black sheet. They mix yellow and blue to paint grass in different shades of green over the jars. Draw fire flies with gold and silver markers and color them with pencils.