I wanted to introduce the grade 7s to Frida Kahlo. I thought they’d love her! A strong woman who was rebellious and stood up for what she believed. I decided we would use nature to make a background using stamping, stencilling or frottage. We then had to add a self portrait onto this. I tried 4 different ways and encouraged the learners to also do what they could with the project!
Fun adventurer
I found this idea online somewhere. My adventurer is now hanging around my class somewhere. 🙂 It’s a good way to teach learners how to use pencil crayons. The basic rule I have is that absolutely nowhere do I want only one colour to be used! I showed them how I used up to 4 colours everywhere!
Cool Maze artwork
I did this last year with my grade 6s. I showed them how a number of artists and designers had used a maze to make a very cool artwork. I first did a simple one (the top pic) and then a more advanced one (the bottom one). The top one actually can be followed, the bottom one just looks like it can. I just had to remind the kids that they can make a maze with the spaces between the lines or with the lines themselves.
Paul Klee inspired artwork
I introduced the learners to Paul Klee. We then had to make a Klee inspired city using bright colours of paint.
Greek artwork
So we took the design that we had done for the previous Greek artwork and stylised it. We took a circular piece of paper. We used various messy tools to add sun colour paint onto this page. We then drew our creature on and made a border with simple designs in it. We then filled these out with black ink. I discovered that using dry kokis is very useful for putting on paint in finicky areas.
Greek mixed creature
We looked at ancient Greek art for a moment. I had been planning to do a work around the ideal in Greek art but couldn’t get an idea for this age group. I decided in stead to focus on a more mythical topic: the Greek myths of mixed human/ animal creatures. The kids had to choose an animal to mix with themselves. I mixed a Duiker with myself. The background we used chalk pastel. We sketched our creature onto this and then added charcoal/ chalk.
1 point perspective project
The grade 6s learnt about 1 point perspective. They had to write a word of their choosing and then make this word vanish in 1 point perspective. They could add whatever they wanted in the background. To make the blurry affect on parts of the fineliner background I used water over the fineliner which makes it go almost like water colour paint. 
Birds on background
This was a simple but fun project I did with my grade 6s. We started by filling a page using chalk pastel. We then sprayed it with fixative. We took black ink, put some drops and blew it with straws to make twigs and branches of a ‘tree’. We drew birds on paper and then traced these onto clear plastic sheets with permanent marker. I painted my two birds using different techniques. The top one I mixed ink with school glue/ wood glue and used a syringe to outline the bird with this. This made raised ‘walls’. I filled in the bird with glass glaze. (which is very runny!)The bottom one I just did using acrylic paint.
Studio Ghibli inspired creature
I did this project with my grade 4s last year. That grade is anime mad! (and Miyazaki in particular) So I showed them some clips of famous Ghibli films. We then had to create our own creature and use oil pastel to depict the creature in a scene.
Night/day
This was a project I did with my grade 5s. I taught them about warm/ cold colours, silhouettes and contrast. We did the BG in water colour paint and used salt to give it a cool affect. Onto this we used black ink/ paint to make a silhouette of a tree/ scene. 
MSG 