Mola Art ~ Year 1-2

World Culture Art lesson inspired by Mola art from San Blas Islands in Panama

Mola art is a panel sewn onto the front and back of the blouse or dress made and worn by the Kuna/Guna women from the San Blas Islands in Panama. It is traditionally made with layers of colourful fabric and the technique of reverse applique by cutting away parts of each layer to reveal a colour shape then turning under and sewing down the edges creating patterns and pictures of birds, fish, animals, flowers and plants.

Our art lesson captures the colour, shapes, patterns and layers using skills of collage: cutting out shapes and arranging to fill the space. Lots of concepts and skills- colour, line, shape, space, size, cutting, overlaying, arranging, pasting. I drew simple shapes of animals, fish and flowers to print out onto coloured cover paper for children to choose their shape (or students could draw their own shape)

They cut out their shape, chose a contrast colour to glue it onto, traced around it then cut out around the shape. They repeated this two more times before gluing to black paper to fill the negative space with coloured strips and shapes.

Victorian Curriculum Lesson for Year 1-2 with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson steps, links to useful videos or slides, shape pictures to copy onto A4 coloured paper (or to make shapes to trace) and a reflection or review sheet /activity to complete as a class or well suited to Year 2 to complete individually.

AUD $3.00 email download of lesson plan

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Collage/Mixed Media Houses- & Paper Bag Houses~Prep art lesson

Children used pre-cut shapes to assemble a house shape with white or coloured squares for windows and the number of people in their family. They draw a face of each family member on the squares. Shutters (patterned paper) are added over the window squares and cut so they open in the middle.

A background for the newspaper house is made by using white pastel for clouds in the sky (blue dye wash or liquid watercolour over) green sponge for textured grass. Students glue their house to the background, adding trees, flowers, fence.

Paper bag houses!

Not my original idea- I’ve seen this on lots of other blogs- just my take on it.

The paper bag house is a similar process, except the students are gluing onto stiff paper bag (that will stand up on it’s own) They add a garden or yard by sitting it on green paper, adding stand up trees, flowers etc. The roof is a folded piece of coloured card, stapled on.

Lesson plan aligned to the Victorian Curriculum with learning intention, success criteria, lesson activities and a reflection sheet for the students. Lesson includes the mixed media collage and the paper bag houses (similar steps)

AUD $2.50 for email download of this lesson

Frog Life Cycle~ Year 1/2 Mixed media art lesson

As part of a theme of Growth and Change, Year 1 & 2 discussed changes in the weather and the seasons and nature. We talked about the traditional seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and learnt about the seven Aboriginal Seasons of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne and south central Victoria) by viewing a Calendar. We noted that September and October is called “Poorneet”- Tadpole Season. Some children had said they’d seen tadpoles and small frogs in a local park with a lake.

We watched a video about the life cycle of a frog, with pictures of the stages and changes.

Students painted a lake, pond or creek/river. They formed tadpoles for plasticine and eggs from bubble wrap.

Painted paper was made with browns and greens using texture wands to make frog skin.

Children used templates to help them draw the body parts for their frog onto the back of their painted paper to then cut out and glue together, then place on their pond scene.

AUD $2 for email download of this lesson

Lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, links to videos used, frog templates, and Victorian Curriculum links.

Painted Paper Butterflies~ Eric Carle inspired- Prep

LEARNING INTENTIONS:

To make an Eric Carle inspired butterfly collage with painted paper.

We are learning about symmetry and shape.

We are learning about warm and cool colours.

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

I can cut a symmetrical butterfly shape from painted paper by folding my paper in half.

I can cut shapes from cool coloured paper and arrange symmetrically onto my butterfly (in the style of Eric Carle)

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

Children make painted paper with WARM colours. They paint their entire paper with one warm colour then add texture by scraping a texture comb through the wet paint. They then use texture wands to dab or roll another warm colour over the paper.

Discuss SYMMETRY- mirror images- same on both sides. Look at some pictures of butterflies and notice the symmetrical designs. Discuss SHAPES – organic: like a butterfly, a leaf, a flower etc, and geometric like squares and triangles.

Students fold their dry painted paper in half (colour inside) and draw half a butterfly- maybe a ‘B’ shape or chosen wing design next to the fold and cut out.

Add a long brown strip for body in the middle. Add a circle head, eyes and antennae.

Cool coloured papers (scraps) are folded and used to cut out (two at a time) shapes to be placed symmetrically on butterfly wings.

AUD $1.50 for email download of this lesson

Hungry Caterpillars ~ Eric Carle inspired. Prep collage art lesson

Eric Carle’s children’s books and illustrations are a delight to read to children and also a wonderful inspiration so many art projects- who doesn’t love painted paper collages?

The Prep students (first year at Primary school) were working on a theme of “Growth and Change” and the story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” fits in beautifully. This art lesson is the first part- of course there has to be the cocoon and then the butterfly!

We watched an animated version of the story on Youtube, and I also had a copy of the book to look carefully at the pictures. We discussed how they think Eric Carle made the pictures- someone did eventually proffer that he painted paper and then cut and pasted it. We talked about how he might have got the effects of texture. I then showed them a short video of Carle making making paper, and collaging a butterfly, so they could see his process.

Making painted paper:

Students were given a tray with a dark green, an ‘apple’ green, and white. They were instructed not to actually mix the colours, but to double dip to cover their entire paper and then while the paint was wet to use a texture wand or comb to dab or scrape through the wet paint. They also did a smaller piece of paper with red, yellow and purple paint in sections. These are left to dry for the next session.

We looked at Eric Carle’s caterpillar and decided that the shape needed for the body parts was an oval. So to make a template for the caterpillar’s body, each child was given a smallish piece of cardboard to fill it with an oval shape. After checking with me that it was big enough, they cut it out and used that to trace onto the back of their painted paper as many as they could. (we folded the paper in half so they would cut two out at a time) They traced a slightly bigger head on the red paper and used the yellow to cut circles for eyes, the purple for antennae.

I demonstrated how they could glue down their ovals- we talked about arranging and overlapping- once again referring to Carle’s caterpillar. Students cut out yellow eyes, purple antennae and green circles for on top of eyes and a small triangle nose. I cut the little ‘L’ shaped feet for them from scrap brown painted paper.

BUY Hungry Caterpillars Lesson Plan: AU $2.50 for email download

Full Lesson Plan with Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, (also enlarged for display on screen or print) lesson activities, youtube video links, and self evaluation rubric.

COLLAGE COWS ~ Inspired by Elizabeth St Hilaire. Year 5/6 art lesson.

Our school was doing a “Discover Dairy” inquiry unit and so we were making lots of artworks of cows! The inspiration for this lesson was from “paper paintings” of cows by Elizabeth St Hilaire (Nelson)

“Paper Paintings” by Elizabeth St Hilaire

The students looked at some St Hilaire’s “paper painted” cows and inferred the techniques and materials they think she used.

We watched a couple of videos with Elizabeth St Hilaire talking about her materials and showing the techniques she uses.

The students then chose a photo of a chosen breed of cow to crop to a square to use for a reference to make a realistic drawing and get the shape and colouring right.

They drew a grid on the photo (digitally) then ruled up a larger piece of paper to enlarge each part of the drawing of the cow’s head.

Next they used the photo as a reference to mix paints to match to do an underpainting and make some painted paper.

The painted paper was used to collage over the “underpainting”

The students used a grid to enlarge the drawing from their cow photo, then mixed paints to do an underpainting, followed by collaging over the painting with painted papers to give the texture.

We took 4-5 one hour lessons to complete and evaluate the artworks. Full lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities with process, useful video links and students self evaluation rubric, all linked to Victorian Curriculum to purchase below.

AUD $5 for email download of full PDF lesson plan and the Student Rubric (Word Document)

AUTUMN BIRCH TREES: Elizabeth St Hilaire inspired – Year 5/6 art lesson

Painted paper collages of ‘Fall’ birch trees by Elizabeth St Hilaire were the inspiration for these mixed media artworks by Year 5 students. The process we used was different than that of St Hilaire, though I got the students to suggest what materials and techniques they think were used by her.

Elizabeth St Hilaire was born and raised in New England, USA and has lived in Florida for more than 20 years. She makes collages from painted, found and hand made papers, which she tears and collages to make her amazing textured and patterned artworks of landscapes, trees, animals, flowers, birds and portraits. St Hilaire does an underpainting first then uses swatches of painted and found paper in matching colours to glue over the top, giving her work a painterly finish, with the texture of a collage. We used a different process, painting the collaged newspaper after it was stuck down. For this project we looked at her Autumn (Fall) Birch trees for inspiration!

Lesson Plan for Year 5-6 aligned to Victorian Curriculum, with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities with materials and techniques, artist and student examples, plus rubric reflection sheet.

AUD $2 for email download of this lesson plan

Autumn Tree Collage- Eloise Renouf style- Year 1-2

Overlapping Autumn Tree collage-Eloise Renouf inspired

Eloise Renouf is an artist, designer and illustrator from the UK whose designs adorn fabric and printed textiles for homewares and greeting cards. She designs all sorts of nature-inspired patterns: from flowers, trees, clouds, birds and leaves. Her overlapping trees use circles, ovals and roundish shapes or ’round cornered’ squares!

First the students made painted paper, using warm coloured paint to print and dab with brushes and texture wands onto warm coloured cover paper. While this was left to dry, they made their background- one class used paint to dab on the grass at the bottom of a piece of blue cover paper; the other class overlapped pieces of green tissue paper along the bottom third of the paper.

The next lesson, students used pre-cut templates mostly in the shape of ovals and round cornered squares to trace the shapes on the back of the painted paper, and cutting out, making sure to share and use other students scraps to get a variety of colours and patterns.

They then used permanent markers to draw a line up the middle of the shape for the tree trunk, then add various lines for branches, using Renouf designs for ideas.

Students then had to arrange their trees with the colours spread into a “back row” on the top half of the page, gluing down, then adding the trunk in the black marker to touch the top of the “ground”. The next row of trees were glued lower, slightly overlapping the back row, and with the various colours spread out.

The trunks drawn from those trees needed to be drawn down a little lower because they are closer!

This took 2 one hour lessons. We had discussions about shape, colour, line, overlapping etc.

My art lesson with Year 1 and 2 students was adapted from “First Grade landscapes” from a Cassie Stephens post.

Lesson plan to purchase with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, linked curriculum and assessment rubric below.

AUD $2 for email download of Yr 1-2 Autumn Tree Mixed Media- Eloise Renouf Inspired lesson

Spring Flowers Eric Carle Collage- Yr 1-2

This lesson is great at the beginning of Spring, and fits in nicely with the theme of growth and change. We read the Eric Carle book, “The Tiny Seed”, and discussed how he might have made his pictures.

Students had fun making painted paper, learning about texture, contrast, and warm and cool colours. They made their own petal template shape, cut and arranged them, following steps shown . Full lesson plan below.

AUD $2 email download of Spring Flower lesson