Lesson At A Glance

A brief overview of each step. Buttons jump to each section for detailed information.

10 Min – Students draw outlines for their desert

15 Min – Make resist paintings.Display lizard slideshow

5 Min – Students make “bark” out of brown kraft paper.

5 Min – Draw lizard outline

15 Min – Make doodle designs inside the lizard shape

5 Min – Everyone helps

SCROLL & TEACH

LESSONPLAN

Each section is a different color. Read over once and then you can SCROLL & TEACH using any device you like. It’s designed to work best with your phone.

Kneel down so that you are on their level. Bending over emphasizes the differences in your height, while kneeling makes them feel more important. Have tape and marker ready so you can stick some tape on the table by each student and write their name on it as they sit down.

Everyone should take their time with the work and make a finished piece of art. Limiting the paper can also help kids focus on the work. If someone finishes in super-fast time, ask them what more they can do to the existing paper. Ask again several times – unless they appear overly frustrated; then you can allow them to move on to a new work.

While students work, you can display the pictures below, and read the captions.

There are 3 big parts to draw as we just learned in the slideshow. Students should decide if they want a daytime sky, night time, or a sunset sky. Night time skies can have a moon in them.

Read the instructions on the PDF to your students, since many of them may not be able to read it well.

Have them look at the small picture with the black frame first. Then point out how each of the 3 big parts has a color. Inside the color boxes for each part are pictures that they can draw from to make a desert scene. Begin with the Middleground, because that also creates the background sky.

Remember to begin with the middle ground first.

Guidelines!

Artists draw outlines only, but no shading or details. These are just guidelines for our pastels and paint.

ONLY USE LIGHT COLORS for your oil pastels today. We will use darker paints later, and the light colors will show up much better then. White is great even though you won’t see it now, and any of the very light colors. Go over colors that are medium toned, with white to make them lighter.

You can tell your students that this part of the art is almost like doing secret messages. You can’t see it or at least not very well, until we add the watercolor later. Then it will show up like magic!

Add these textures to your landscape with the light oil pastels:

• Dots and dashes in the sand, so it looks sandy and bumpy like rocks
• Clouds, swirls, sun or moon in the sky – think about the color it will be for either daytime or sunset.
• Curvy & straight lines on the mountains/buttes
• Spiky spines on the cactus!

Remind your students how Van Gogh painted his sky with whirls of lines and dashes. If you were here last week, you did that too! This is a lot like that, but with pastels instead of paint.

Brushes should be nylon for springiness and durability. Round brushes are the most versatile.

Paint pigment list:

• Napthol or Pyrrol Red
• Hansa or Light Yellow
• Pthalo Green (blue shade)
• Cyan or Cerulean Blue
• Ultramarine Blue
• Dioxazine Purple
• Magenta
• Burnt Umber
• Raw Sienna
• Titanium White (professional grade only)

Bring all of the watercolor pans and brushes out. Also provide mixing trays or plates. Have tubs of water to clean and paper towels to wipe up messes.

Small bowls can be used to mix up a lot of watercolor ahead of time. It is always good to have plenty of watercolor paint.

Encourage your students to get a lot of color into the watercolors so that the colors are strong and vibrant on the paper. More layers can be added if it looks too light.

Making bark:

1. Tear a piece off – tear all edges. It can be an odd shape or rectangular
2. Crumple up, and flatten out – repeat 4 or 5 times to soften and wrinkle

While students work, show the Pinterest page with Mexican Bark Painting examples.

Mexican Bark Paintings (tap any image to open viewer)

Students should try drawing the lizard onto their wrinkly lizard bark. However, some of your students may be nervous about drawing the complex shape. Have some lizard shapes cut out from the gray lizard shape template PDF above, so students who are nervous about drawing can choose to trace the shape. Use pencils to trace, and then switch to a marker to re-trace, or for young artists, they can simply trace with the marker and skip the pencil. The goal is to enjoy the process and feel confident.

Artists will push themselves when they are ready to improve – you don’t ever have to.

Students will draw then initially with black markers, and then switch to using oil pastels for adding bright warm colors in between the black lines. Use them like a marker, making boldly colored lines instead of shading or blending. Use the brightest warm colors like yellow, orange, and red. Then they can finish with a few touches of one cool color: either purple, blue, or green.

• Wash hands
• Super-wash brushes if used
• Put art supplies away
• Wipe tables & toss trash
• Remove any smocks (last)
• Check for items on floors and tables

Purchase rolls of brown kraft paper at the paint section of big hardware stores. They sell it for drop cloths.

Print all of your PDFs from the lesson plan and cut any references apart as needed.

Week 35: Big Box Painting

Students will cover a large cardboard box with butcher paper and masking tape, and then they paint it as a group, making up things along the way but collaborating so the box has a theme. Then we finish with artists’ choice in watercolors or oil pastels.

Week 36: Party Animals

Our last class of the year has students going to an animal party. Using blank masks to pretend they are animals, then everyone finds reference and paints their mask to match a chosen animal. Pretend play and a game take the middle of the class time, and then there is a marker drawing project of animals having a Summertime party.