Maasai African Portraits

The Maasai people of African are located in Kenya. Their distinctive clothing and head dress make them among the most well known of all African tribes. A marker drawing on a piece of madras pattern tissue paper is one way to pay tribute to their fascinating culture.

1. After discussing a bit about the Maasai, I recommend that students first draw their portraits on a piece of drawing paper. Beginning with a large oval and neck, the stylized eyes, nose and mouth are added. Neck ware, headbands and feathers may be included too.

2. After the drawing is done, a matching size piece of madras pattern tissue paper is taped on the front, and the portrait lines are traced onto the tissue. Next the lines are all traced with Sharpie markers, some with fat and some with thin tip. I find that a variety of line weights add interest to artwork.

3. Lastly, the face is filled in with marker, leaving a bit of space around the eyebrow and nose line so they don’t disappear.

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Many-Colored Hands

I’ve found that students new to oil pastels often need to be guided to use them to their full potential, namely layering them. This project can be a good practice as they will be able to see that brown pastel colored over gold, for example, makes a completely different color than gold colored over brown.

1. Students are to trace their hand as many times as the they can on a piece of paper, all of them just touching each other to create lots of closed spaces. No overlapping!
2. After the hands are traced in pencil, the lines are traced with a fat black Sharpie marker.
3. The hands are colored in with oil pastels, using as many combinations as possible. My sample uses peach, golden brown, medium brown, pink and white in different layers.
4. Lastly, the closed shapes around the hands are colored with different pastels.

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Japanese Watercolor Fans

If you need a Japanese-themed art project, this works well even for kinders. In fact, I personally like the “wobbly” lines of the young ones – who wants a drawing that looks like it was done on a computer?

1. These fans are all based on quarter circles, so you need to start with circle templates. Older students could cut their own from folded paper, younger may need to have some already made. (I used a 7" circle for 12" x 17" paper.) When students have their circle template, they cut it in half, and then in half again.
2. The quarter circle shape is randomly placed on watercolor paper and traced with a pencil. Repeat until the paper is full. Three lines are drawn inside each fan, along with a curve to indicated the inside edge of the fan. Trace all the lines with a crayon, pressing hard to make definite edges.
3. The inside of the fans are painted with watercolor paint, and afterward the background. The crayon lines will help keep the paint from running together.

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Paint and Pastel Island House

This is another oil pastel over tempera project that worked well for a multicultural theme a few years ago. A teacher wanted an art project linked to the Bahamas, and this colorful house worked well. I’ve found that when students add oil pastel details over tempera paintings, they end up with a lot more color and detail in their art.

1. The students begin by drawing the angled roof shape in the middle of their paper.
2. The house side is drawn below.
3. The left side of the house is added. Younger students might be better off ignoring the little indents of the roof.
4. A base is added to the bottom house, and also a horizon line.
5. The house, sky and ground are all painted with colorful tempera paint. Let dry overnight.
6. A white pastel may be used to draw clouds, black to make edges on the house, and green to highlight some grass shapes.

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Gold and Black Greek Vases

My quest for multi-cultural art continues, which has led me to a new media combo that I really like. It’s using food wrap paper like this, markers and tempera paint. I actually ran out of drawing paper and tried out this food wrap that was left over from an old project. It makes for a very “breezy” painting that doesn't wrinkle like the others. More tests to continue...

1. I had the students fold their 12" x 12" food wrap paper in half and crease. With a pencil, they could draw half of a large vase, preferably using up as much of the paper as possible. When complete, they traced it with a large, chisel-tip black Sharpie. With the paper still folded, they turned it over to see the lines showing through and traced again. When complete, the opened vase drawing should be symmetrical.

2. They students filled in their vases with decorations of the country, with either figures or plants. I asked them to draw lots of images, trace them carefully with the black Sharpie. Once completed, the negative space around them could be filled in black. The tops, handles and base could be colored or not at their discretion. Care needed to be taken to not rub hands through the marker while it was still wet as smears could occur.

3. When the vase was all colored in, gold tempera paint was spread over the entire vase, but not the background. I had thirty 5th graders do this today in 45 minutes, all with really bold and shimmery finishes. Can’t wait to see them hanging on a line outside the classroom tomorrow.

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Mexican Landscape

Diversity Day is approaching, so I’m trying to integrate each classroom’s chosen country into their art lessons. No small task, but for some reason I enjoy the challenge. A second grade class made this drawing today, which was an exercise in drawing close shapes large and far shapes small.

1. I started with colored paper so that the houses could be colored a nice, bright white. With a pencil, a horizon line was drawn about 1/3 of the way down the paper. I asked the students to draw a vertical wavy road, and then add at least three houses along that road. The closest house was to be the largest, the next smaller, and so on. I demonstrated some simple examples of Spanish-style houses with tile roofs and wooden doors. Trees could also be added, keeping the close ones large, etc.

2. When the drawing was done, the pencil lines were traced with a fine tip black Sharpie.

3. Lastly, all the shapes were colored in with colored pencils. The students seemed to enjoy this project more than most so I'm going to maybe try variations of it in the future. 

CA Visual Art Standard: Creative Expression, Grade Two
2.3 Depict the illusion of depth (space) in a work of art, using overlapping shapes, relative size, and placement within the picture.

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Scherenschnitte-style Drawing

Scherenschnitte, which means “scissor cuts” in German, is the art of papercutting. This work often has lots of symmetry, and common forms include silhouette and portrait images. I needed a German-themed art project this week, so I had my 4th graders draw a bold German mask to imitate the look of Scherenschnitte, as sharp scissors or knives were not an option for this age group.

1. One of my biggest internet finds last year was ClipartETC.com. They have thousands of etching-style drawings that are very easy to browse through. I decided to use several of their German mask images, like this one, and printed the largest out on a letter-size paper. Because the mask images tended to have shading on one side and not the other, I asked this students to fold the paper in half, leaving the unshaded side of the mask showing on the top. 

2. The students placed a sheet of tracing paper on top of the folded paper and drew in pencil half of the printed mask by tracing all the edges they could find.

3. When the half-mask drawing was complete, the students refolded their tracing paper so that the pencil was on the inside, and they could trace the other side of the face on the blank half of the paper. The goal was to have a symmetrical face drawn on the tissue paper, even if the pencil lines did not end up on the same side.

4. When a symmetrical face was showing on the tracing paper, a large black Sharpie was used to trace all the lines, making them as thick as possible. The thicker the better, to imitate the look of cut black paper that was cut away with a blade.

5. When the mask drawing was complete, a frame was added around the outside, one that touched all four edges of the drawing.

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Aboriginal Snake Drawing

In Australia, there are Aborigines who live today as they did thousands of years ago. Like cave painters, they use art as a way to tell stories known as "dreamings." One common feature to Aborigine artwork is that the insides are filled with lots of lines and dots and patterns.
1. Start with a dark paper and pencil and have the students make a large block-style letter "S", with the ends left open.
2. Show the students how to continue the top of the "S" that goes over the body and forms a head. They same is true for the bottom to end the tail. In both cases, the snake needs to get narrower in width.
3. Lastly, they erase the lines that wouldn't show. Ask the students to trace the snake with a light color on the outside, and a light stripe down the center of the body. To finish they can divide the snake up in sections, color patterns and then also color the outside. I used a new type of pencils called Art Stix for this picture, but you could use regular colored pencils as well. Just make sure to test them first as not all colors are opaque and thus kind of disappear on the black paper.

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How to Make a Mola

Molas are handmade textiles from Panama which use a reverse appliqué technique. Several layers of different-colored cloth are sewn together and the design is then formed by cutting parts of each layer away. While that technique is pretty intricate, the look can be imitated by layering construction paper.

1. The process starts with choosing the main animal shape. It should be a simple silhouette that the student can draw themselves. In this case I started by drawing and cutting out an orange fish.
2. The orange fish is glued onto a larger piece of yellow construction paper and cut out leaving an edge of yellow all the way around.
3. The orange and yellow fish is now glued onto a piece of red construction paper and likewise cut out leaving an edge of red all the way around.
4. Now it's time for the details inside the fish body. I cut an eye out of red paper, glued it to a yellow backing and cut it out. A fin was cut out of yellow, glued to red, and cut out. The eye and fin are then glued to the fish body.
5. Glue the entire layered animal to a black piece of construction paper. For more advanced students, the layers could be continued as classtime allows. The more layers, the more colorful your mola.

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Senofu Spirit Drawings

The Senufo people of West Africa’s Ivory Coast are renowned for their cloth paintings. They believe their artwork has special meaning and helps protect them in their daily lives. Design motifs usually include birds, snakes, fish, frogs, crocodiles, and turtles as seen from above or side, covered with lots of geometric patterns.
1. I had to substitute manila paper for cloth, but someday would like to try this on muslin. I had the students draw a border around their paper the width of a ruler. I drew some very simple animal shapes on the board for them to refer to. They were to pick their favorite and draw it as large as they could in the middle of their paper. When complete, the animals were filled with geometric patterns as well as the border.
2. After the patterns are all drawn, I had the students trace the animal and border with a fat black Sharpie and the inside patterns with a thin one.
3. When coloring with oil pastels, I explained that the Senofu people thought all animals had spirits and often outlined them with a thick band of yellow to represent that kind of energy. Lastly, the background was colored whatever color they wanted. The borders were to remain with patterns only and no extra color.

CA Art Standard: Grade Four
4.4 Identify and describe how various cultures define and value art differently.

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International Passport Template

My passport template has been very popular over the years, so I decided to offer an International version as an alternative to the USA and Canadian templates. The difference is just the cover of the book, which now reads “International Passport”.

My template has 6 black and white passport pages to color, and one template for a sleeve. The final passport measures 4.25" x 5.5" folded. Please note that the map pages are outlined only and have NO type information on them. (The students get to look up and write that info in themselves!) You can see a preview of the pdf file by clicking HERE. You can purchase my pdf file with instructions for just $5. Click the “Add to Cart” button below to make your payment and receive download instructions.

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