Finish-the-Spider Drawing

I’m thinking of adapting some of my black and white projects to Halloween themes, and this one I think might work well for some creepy, but symmetrical drawing practice.
1. If you google “Clip Art ETC” you will find this amazing collection of black and white art that is collected mainly for educational use. Search for “spiders” and you may have trouble deciding which one to download. I chose the highest resolution of a fuzzy one, and cropped it in my computer to print just half an image. The low tech approach would be to print out the whole image, cut it in half, and xerox your copies.
2. I plan to give each student a spider print, along with a soft dark pencil such an HB grade. Tell the students that spiders are very symmetrical and all the information you need to draw on the missing side, is on the printed side. I recommend that they start with the outside edges until they think the shapes match, and then fill the inside to match. Dark shading will be necessary to match the printed side of the spider.

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Paul Klee Portrait

Paul Klee was a Swiss artist from the early 1900's who liked to turn things he saw into simple geometric shapes. His “Head of A Man” is a classic example of his philosophy.

1. In the center of a 9" x 12" sheet of paper, have the students draw a 6" circle, using a cardboard template. Below that the neck and shoulders can be drawn, but only using straight lines and angles.
2. The face may be drawn in pencil, but again only using very simple lines. Trace all with a dark crayon, pressing firmly.
3. Cut up various sheets of tissue paper, in about 3" squares. With a cup of water and a paint brush, the students are to dampen the white paper, and place up pieces of tissue on top in a grid-like format. Once the paper is covered, the tissue may be picked up and thrown away. The student will find that the tissue color has bled to the paper in irregular shapes. It is wise to test tissue paper with water first as some bleed more than others.

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Paper Mache Masks

This week I had a lot of students finish their paper mache masks in my first after-school class. I love the big, bold results! One of the joys of working with little kids is watching how they can paint without hesitation. No regrets, no worries... they just paint.

Note: There is a fair amount of prep work for this, but it was all made from recycled products so it was cheap. I started by cutting the largest matching ovals I could from the two flat sides of a pizza box, approx: 17" x 14". This large size is important as it allows little ones to paint with big fat brushes and still get a clear face. Using box cutters, I cut out the eyes from one oval, traced them onto the other and cut again. You will need some kind of spacers to glue the two cardboard faces together, with about an inch of space between. I stacked about 5 layers of cardboard strips together on the chin, cheeks and forehead and glued them together with a tacky white glue. Let dry. With 2" wide masking tape, run a strip all around the outside to seal the edge. With thinner tape, also tape closed the inside of the eyes. This has to be repeated for each student.
1. Week One: Have the students paper mache the large areas of the face with 5" squares of paper towel. They should try to get near all the edges to make what looks like a generally white face.
2. Week Two: The students now work with narrower strips of paper towel, about 2" wide, and concentrate on wrapping the strips around the outside edge and the inside of the eyes. The mask should now be completely covered with towel, and there should be no tape showing anywhere.
3. Week Three: I had a lot of premixed acrylic paint from Michael’s, their store brand actually, and first limited the kids to one background color of paint. When the face was completely covered, they were allowed to choose their own colors to paint details. Let dry. Spray with a glossy spray sealer when complete.

This mask was made by a talented first grader, Sophie Haaland. Thanks Sophie!

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