Japanese Art-Edo Period

Japanese Art-

(Calendar at bottom of post)

Sumi-e Painting / Art of Japan

Japan is a large island country in Asia, across the Pacific Ocean from us.  It has a very old and amazing culture.  Japan is known for many beautiful woodblock prints, and one of the most famous prints is called The Great Wave, by an artist named Hokusai. 

  (Show The Great Wave and other laminated prints.) 

The kind of Japanese art that we will focus on today is called Sumi-e painting (Sue-me-A).  Sumi-e means “Ink Picture”.  The idea in Sumi-e painting is to use only black ink, a brush and paper, and to use the fewest lines possible to create a painting that feels real. 

Sumi-e painting is very different from other kinds of painting.  For one thing, Sumi-e paintings are done very quickly.  The artists carefully think about what they want to paint, then they use a few skillful lines to create the picture.  In a way, Sumi-e paintings can look very realistic, but looked at another way, you can see they are just a few lines put together.

  (Show cat and bird paintings.) 

Look at these Sumi-e paintings of a cat and a bird.  The artists used just a few marks to create the pictures, but you can tell right away what they are. 

Sumi-e artists try to use just a few marks and very little detail to create a very realistic picture.  The artists really try to show the living spirit of the thing they are painting.  

There is an old Japanese story of a young monk who painted a picture of two dragons.  He showed it to his master, and his master thought it was very good, but asked the monk why he didn’t paint any pupils in the dragons’ eyes.  The monk replied that he was afraid the dragons would come to life if he did that.  The master laughed and told him to paint the eyes anyway, so he did, but right away the dragons on the paper began to move.  They lifted right up off the paper and flew off into the sky.  Here is a Sumi-e painting of a dragon, and one of a very nice monkey.

(Show dragon and monkey paintings.)

Animals and plants are popular subjects of Sumi-e paintings.  Many times the artist will only show part of something, like a tree branch instead of a whole tree.   The artist will think carefully about how to place the subject on the paper, and the shape of the white space that will be all around it.  The white space is an important part of the painting.  Look at these paintings of bamboo and cherry blossoms, and see how much white space is left on the page.

(Show bamboo and cherry blossom pictures.)

Sumi-e painting is often done with only black ink.  Some artists do use color, but they don’t paint in full color to make a scene look realistic.  They use black with a small amount of color in certain places, or they mix a small amount of color into the black ink. 

Traditional Sumi-e painting is done with what the Japanese call “The Four Gentlemen”.  The Four Gentlemen are an ink stick, an ink grinding stone, a brush, and rice paper.  Sumi-e ink comes in a solid stick, and the artist has to grind it in a stone dish with some water to make ink.  

Templeton Elementary School Art Literacy Program

Sumi-e Painting Project / Japanese Art

Getting ready

Presenters, first thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall.  That way we know where the art carts are at any time.  Presenters should only be coming in at a time they have officially signed up for.  Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the supplies you will need.  The tools and the presentation folders should be on the cart, but you will need to take two stacks of paper from the counter – small watercolor paper and larger plain white paper.  Be sure your bottle of diluted black paint is full.  There will be a few extra on the counter and we will try to refill them as often as needed.  You will not need as much red paint, but the bottle should be half full anyway.          

Should be on cart

Presentation folder and laminated art examples, roll of paper towels and a sponge

Desk protector sheets (30)                     Sumi paint brushes (30)

Plastic bottle of black paint (1)               Plastic palettes (15)

Plastic bottle of red paint (1)                  Bag of pencils (30)

Glass jars for water (6)                           Box of extra emergency paper  

Sheets of sumi-e picture close ups in plastic sleeves (30)

Take from counter  -  take a drying rack if you want to, also:

30 sheets of 6x9 watercolor paper         30 sheets of 10x12 white paper for practice

   

In the classroom, set up the kids’ places for them.  Each student starts out with a desk cover, a sheet of 10x12 plain white paper, a pencil, a page of sumi-e pictures in a plastic sleeve, and a sumi-e brush.  Each table gets one jar of water to share, not quite full.  Kids will have to share paint palettes, hopefully two kids per each.   Give each kid some black paint on the palettes. About half a hole full is enough per student -- when we did sample projects we didn’t need even that much.  Hopefully one bottle will be more than enough for a while class.  (Don’t give out too much.  You can always give them a little more later.)  DO NOT hand out the watercolor paper yet or the red paint.  Wait until after the practice on the cheap paper.  We can only give each student one sheet of watercolor paper.    If a student wrecks their good paper and is unhappy, you can give them a small sheet of regular paper from the emergency paper box on the cart.

The Project

(Things you might want to say to the kids are in purple.)  Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go along.   Show the students the sample of our project, along with other Sumi-e samples, and leave them out to look at.  This project will be done a little differently.  The first half of the time will be spent on practicing technique on practice paper, then after that the final painting will be done.  Sumi-e goes quickly, so it should actually be pretty fast.  Instead of having a list of steps on the overhead, for this project you will use a series of 3 sheets on the overhead during the practice time to give the kids the idea of how to draw certain things.

Introduction

Today we are going to make a Sumi-e painting.    We don’t have a lot of time, so we are not going to use ink sticks and grind our own ink.  Instead, we will use black paint thinned with some water.

Sumi-e artists use their paintbrushes in different ways to make different kinds of lines. Sometimes they use the whole brush to make a wide line, or even use the side of the brush to make a very wide line.  To make details in a picture, they make the tip of their brush into a point by rolling it on a plate.  To practice this you don’t even need paint.  Just dip your brush in the water, and then roll it on your place mat to make the tip of the brush into a point. 

Now we’ll make practice brush strokes on the paper.  Get the brush wet, then shake off the extra water, and get some paint on the brush.  When sumi-e artists draw lines, they want to have enough ink and water on their brushes to last the whole length of the line they are drawing. 

(Put the page of grasses on the overhead.)  

First try drawing some long leaves of grass.  Start at the bottom where the ground would be, and draw the whole blade of grass in one stroke.  To make the tip of the grass pointy, lift up your brush so just the tip of the brush is touching the paper. To show how grass leaves twist around, you can draw a leaf by pressing down harder on the brush, then lifting it as you go to make the line get skinnier, then pushing harder again.  The line will be thick, then thin, then thick again, and it will look like a twisted blade of grass. 

(Put the page of bamboo on the overhead.)

Now try making some bamboo leaf shapes.  Bamboo leaves are shaped like long, thin triangles. Start by pressing the brush down enough to make a thick line, and as you draw your line, pull the brush higher so just the tip is touching the paper.  It will make the end of the leaf come out like a point. 

Now try making the bamboo branches.  Bamboo grows in segments that are attached to each other.  Try drawing the thickest line you can with the side of the brush to draw parts of bamboo branches.  Leave a little bit of space between the segments.  If you want you can draw a small line there.  On a bamboo plant, tiny little branches grow out of the places where the big segments connect, and those branches are where the leaves grow from.

To show that something is farther away, Sumi-e artists use very watery ink to paint in light gray.  After using a brush full of ink, you can dip your brush once in the water, and when you paint with it, it will have a light gray color on it.  You can use this technique to make it look like one bamboo branch is in front of another one.

(If kids say the page is full, tell them this is just practice, so it’s okay to paint one thing over another.  Or, if the classroom has a recycling bin of paper, they can practice on the backs of used sheets.)

(Put cherry blossom branches on overhead.)

The last thing we will practice is cherry blossoms.  These tree branches are never long and straight.  They are always old looking with sharp corners.  The lines of the branches look jagged.   Try drawing a cherry branch.  First you draw the thickest branch, then the tiny branches, then finally the blossoms. 

The Final art piece

If there are any paint or water spills on desks, wipe them up with the sponge before giving out the good paper.  Now hand each student a piece of watercolor paper.  Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in pencil on the back of their paper. 

Now we are done practicing, and we are ready to paint our real Sumi-e painting.  First you will need to decide of you want to paint a Sumi-e picture of bamboo, or of cherry branches. 

Before you paint anything, you need to think hard about how you want it to look. 

A Sumi-e painting is done with just a few strokes of the brush, but the strokes you make should be well thought out before you even put the brush in the paint.  Think about how large your bamboo or branch will be, and where it will go across the paper.

You can look at the handouts you have at your desks for ideas.  There are pictures of bamboo on one side and cherry branches on the other.  Remember that Sumi-e pictures leave lots of white space.  When you think the picture is done, it’s done.  Don’t add more than the picture needs.  If you choose to do cherry branches, the last thing you will paint is the blossoms, and you can make those black, or you can color them with red paint if you want to. 

Ask kids to raise a hand if they want red for blossoms, then go around and give them a very small bit of red on their palettes.  They won’t need much red at all.  (And we don’t have much.)

Art Lit Japan Sumi-e Project

EXTRA finishing touch if you have time

Sumi-e artists usually finish their paintings by stamping them in red with a small stone seal.  The seal usually is a rectangle, and it usually contains the artist’s name in Japanese calligraphic characters, but it can also be any word they want.  They carve the seal out of soapstone, and dip it in cinnabar ink to make a stamp.  They carefully choose where the stamp will go on the painting, to balance the composition. 

These are examples of seals.   

Choose the best spot on your painting for a seal.  Since we do not have stone seals, we will draw them ourselves with red colored pencils.

If you have colored pencils in your supplies, please take out a red one.  If you don’t, we have a few to take turns with.

First draw a small square or rectangle, then draw your initials inside.  Try to draw it nice and dark.

Now your Sumi-e painting is finished.

Afterwards

Please count the items before you leave the room (brushes, palettes, pencils and sumi-e pages in plastic), and ask kids to look for missing items.  Rinse the water jars in the classroom sink.    When you get back to the library, rinse the palettes and put them back on the cart.  It doesn’t matter if they are wet.   

IMPORTANT - How to wash the brushes

Please treat the brushes with care so they will last.  Water based paint should wash out easily.  Rinse a few brushes at a time under cold water until the water looks clean.  Never soak this kind of brush in water.  Take the brushes by the handle and give them a couple of hard shakes.  This will knock out extra water and bring the bristles to a point.  Then lay the brushes flat on the rag in the brush box to dry.  (The brushes should not be dried standing up in a jar.  The glue that hold the hairs in the brush can dissolve if the wet brushes are upright.) 

Once the projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on it.  Folders will be on the counter.  We will mount these paintings on colored paper after they dry.  We will get all the kids’ artwork back to their teachers before the end of the year to go home with them.

Thank you!                                                                                                             February 2018

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

(Calendar is at bottom of post)

Henri Matisse was born in 1869 in France.  He was going to be a lawyer, but then became ill.  While he was recovering, his mother bought him a box of paints to keep him entertained – and he was hooked.  As soon as he was well again, he gave up law and trained to be an artist.

Henri Matisse became famous for his paintings. But when he was too ill to stand up at an easel and paint, he began to create scenes with shapes cut out of paper.  He called this “drawing with scissors.” but is usually known as collage.

Henri Matisse Bio Presentation

For grades K to 1

Art vocabulary words:  Composition, Abstract

Henri Matisse was a French artist a long time ago.  He didn’t know he wanted to be an artist until he was 21 and his mother gave him a painting set.  Then he knew it was all he wanted to do.  Matisse painted with bright colors, and his work got more and more abstract as he got older.  Abstract means he takes  the subject he wants to paint - like a person, or a tree - and he strips away the details.  He uses just enough of the shape people will recognize so they will know what his subject is.  These are pictures Matisse painted of a goldfish bowl.  (Show pictures 1 and 2) 

Do the colors look real to you?  See how he can make the parts of the picture very simple, but we know what they are?

When he got older, Matisse made art by cutting out shapes from pieces of paper.  He called this “drawing with scissors”.   This is a picture of him working in his studio.  (Show picture 3)

He would arrange his cut outs on a board, or on a wall, and pin them in place, moving them around until he liked the way they looked.  The way you arrange the parts of a picture is called Composition.  Matisse liked working by pinning up his pieces of paper because he could easily move the colors and shapes around until he liked how they looked.  Sometimes he didn’t take the pieces down and glue them until he needed more wall space because he had filled up all his walls. 

Here are two collages Matisse made.  (show pictures 4 and 5) 

They are abstract, but I bet you can see some things in them that you recognize.  (Hopefully kids will talk.)

Today you are going to make an abstract collage of a goldfish bowl.

Matisse Goldfish Collage Project – 

for grades K to 1

Getting ready

Presenters, first thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall.  That way we know where the art carts are at any time.  Presenters should only be coming in at a time they have officially signed up for.  Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the supplies you will need.  The tools and the presentation folders should be on the cart, but you will need to take a package of paper from the box marked “K -1^st project”.

Should be on cart

Presentation folder

Desk protector sheets (30)

Glue sticks (30)

Bag of pencils (30)  

Pencil sharpener

Scissors (30)

Take from counter

1 package of papers, containing:

30 sheets of blue paper

30 sheets of white tissue

30 black rectangles

90 small red and orange papers

Bag of pre-cut green leaves

In the classroom, set up the kids’ places for them.  Each student starts out with a desk cover sheet, a sheet of blue paper for their background, a black rectangle of paper, a piece of white tissue paper, a pencil, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick.  Also give each child 3 red and orange bits of paper (one of each color), 3 green tissue leaves and about 7 dark green pointed leaf shapes.

The Project

(Things you might want to say to the kids are in purple.)  Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go along.   Present the artist to the kids and show his work.  Then show them the sample of our project.  Keep Matisse’s Goldfish paintings out where they can see them.  Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in pencil on the back of their paper. 

Introduction

Today we are going to make a collage in the style of Matisse, using his technique of Painting with Scissors.  The theme of the collage will be a goldfish bowl.  This will work best if you make a project along with the kids as they do, showing them each step in the process.

Step 1: Put a tabletop in your picture.

Put your blue paper in front of you in the tall direction.  Glue your black rectangle onto the lower part of your blue paper.  This will be the table that your goldfish bowl sits on.

Step 2:  Put leaves in your background

Matisse liked to draw plants around his goldfish bowls, so we are going to use green paper to make leaves around our own goldfish bowls.  Take your green leaf shapes and glue them above your tabletop.  They can be near the edges of the paper.  They will look like plants growing behind your goldfish bowl when you are finished.

Step 3: Put your goldfish bowl in your picture

Take your sheet of white tissue paper.  Carefully use your glue stick to put some stripes of glue on the back.  Be careful not to tear it, because tissue paper is very thin.  Then glue it down with the curved side at the bottom, sitting on your tabletop.  It’s okay if it is in front of some of the green leaves.

Step 4:  Draw and cut out your goldfish

Matisse liked to use bright colors that stood out from each other.  We are going to use bright red and orange paper to make our goldfish.  Take your pencil and draw three simple goldfish shapes on the pieces of red and orange paper.  Just draw the outlines, no details.  Use one piece of paper for each fish.  Make them big so they will show up in your picture.  After you have drawn the fish, cut them out. 

Step 5:  Arrange your goldfish in the bowl and glue them

Take your three goldfish and put them in your fishbowl.  Move them around until they look good to you.  Can you make them look like they are swimming?  You can overlap two of your fish a little bit to show they are in front of one another if you like.  When you are happy with where they are, glue them down.

Step 6:  If you like, take out a black crayon or marker and draw eyes on your goldfish.



Examples

Afterwards

Please count the items before you leave the room (scissors, glue sticks and pencils), and ask kids to look for missing items.  PLEASE SAVE ALL UNUSED PAPER AND LARGE SCRAPS FOR RE-USE.  Put them into the box in the library.  

Once the projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on it.  Folders will be on the counter.  We may need the artwork for display during the year, so we don’t want to leave it in teachers’ rooms, because they may send it home.  We will get all the kids’ artwork back to their teachers before the end of the year to go home with them.

Henri Matisse Bio Presentation

For grades 2 to 5

Art vocabulary words:  Composition, Abstract, Reduce, Organic

Henri Matisse was born in northern France in 1869.  He studied law in Paris, but he didn’t enjoy the job.  When he was 21, Matisse had surgery for appendicitis, and he was so bored while he recovered, his mother gave him painting supplies. He later said, “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life.”

Matisse returned to Paris to study art. He was inspired by other artists such as Cezanne and Van Gogh. He admired their use of bold color and brushwork and used their techniques in his own paintings.  At that time it was unusual for artists to use bright colors and abstract shapes that did not look natural, and art critics called the artists who did this “Les Fauves” (pronounced “lay fove”) , which is French for wild beasts.  Matisse’s artwork became more abstract as time went on, filled with bright colors and swirling shapes.  This is Matisse’s painting called “Woman with a Hat”. (show picture 1)

Matisse traveled a lot.  He liked the bright sunny light and colors he saw in the south of France and in Morocco, and he used those same bright colors in his work.  He admired the relaxed Moroccan lifestyle, and Matisse said he wanted his art to be "a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair."  He liked the idea of spending time staring at a goldfish bowl, and he painted quite a few goldfish bowls.  (Show pictures 2 and 3)

 

When he got older, Matisse made art by cutting out shapes from large pieces of paper painted in flat colors.  He called this method “drawing with scissors”.   This is a picture of him working in his studio.  (Show picture 4)

He would arrange his cut outs on a board, or on a wall, and pin them in place, moving them around until he liked the way they looked.  The way you balance a picture by choosing where to put the different parts of it, and how you balance the colors and shapes, is called Composition.  Matisse liked working by pinning up his pieces of paper because he could easily move the colors and shapes around until he felt like the balance was perfect.  Sometimes he didn’t take the pieces down and glue them until he needed more wall space because he had filled up all his walls. 

Look at this collage by Matisse.  It is called “The sadness of the king”.  (Show picture 5.) 

This is an abstract artwork.  What do you see happening?  (If they don’t notice, point out the man drumming, the guitar player, and the woman dancing.) 

In abstract art, the artist takes away all the extra detail from a subject, and shows it in a very simple form.  This is called Reducing the subject.  This picture (show picture 6)

is very simplified, but you can still tell what it is, can’t you?

These are some of Matisse’s collages.  (Show pictures 7, 8, 9, 10) 

  Look at the way Matisse composed his collages.  He used blocks of color as a background, then he put abstract shapes on top.  He used a lot of black and white.   Look at the shapes he used.  What do they look like to you?  They are organic shapes.  They are shapes you would find in nature, not things made by people.

This collage is called “Beasts of the Sea” (#7). 

Can you see anything in it that reminds you of the ocean?  Our project today will be to make a collage about the ocean too, in the style of Henri Matisse.

Matisse Ocean Collage Project – 

for grades 2 to 5

Getting ready

Presenters, first thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall.  That way we know where the art carts are at any time.  Presenters should only be coming in at a time they have officially signed up for.  Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the supplies you will need.  The presentation folders and the tools should all be kept on the carts.  You will need to take a package of paper from the box on the counter marked “2^nd to 5^th project”.  These are the supplies you will need:

On the cart:

Presentation folder

Desk protector sheets (30)

Glue sticks (30)

Bag of pencils (30)

Pencil sharpener (1)

Scissors (30)

From the counter:

Bag of paper, containing:

30 sheets of heavy white paper

1 bundle of colored paper rectangles

A stack of white paper scraps

Other colored paper scraps

In the classroom, set up the kids’ places for them.  Each student starts out with a desk cover sheet, a sheet of heavy white paper, a pencil, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick.  You will need to portion out all the colored paper rectangles fairly evenly.  The easiest way to do this is to count how many table groups you have, then deal out the stack of rectangles into that many piles.  That should give every group about the same number of each color.  Put a pile of colored rectangles in the center of each table group.  Divide up the white paper and other colored scraps as best you can so all the groups have white and a good variety of colors.  If your classroom has any students who sit alone, make sure they each get at least 6 different rectangles and some white to use. 

The Project

(Things you might want to say to the kids are in purple.)  Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go along.   Present the artist to the kids and show his work.  Then show them the samples of our project.  Put the Matisse collage samples where the kids can see them.  Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in pencil on the back of their paper. 

Introduction

Today we are going to make a collage in the style of Matisse, using his technique of Painting with Scissors.  The theme of the collage will be the ocean.  Think about what the subject of your art piece will be before you start.  Will it be the seashore?  Or the bottom of the sea?  It could be seabirds, or fish, waves or tide pools.  It can be anything that has to do with the sea. 

Step 1: Make your boldly colored background

 We will start by making a background for your picture with blocks of color.  First you will choose what colors you want to use.  Matisse liked to use bright colors that stood out from each other.  Bright colored tissue paper and black paper work well as backgrounds.  Choose three or four colored rectangles to use as background blocks, then try arranging them in different ways on your paper until you find the composition that you like best.  Composition means the way the parts of a picture are arranged. 

If you like, you can overlap the background colors, or leave the white showing in places, or cut the background blocks into different rectangular shapes.  When you are happy with the composition, glue your background papers down.

Step 2: Draw and cut out your shapes

 Now that you have a background, think about what sort of simple natural objects – organic shapes – you want to have in the picture.  You might use plants, rocks, animals, waves, sand, the current of the water, the wind.  You will need to draw your subject in a very simplified way.  No details.  You want to draw the outline of the subject so you can tell what it is just by the shape.  By doing this, you will be reducing the subject to an abstract form. 

Carefully choose which colors you want to use.  Matisse used a lot of white cut-outs in his collages, and he used a lot of black.  Black and white contrast well with the background colors.

Draw the shapes with pencil on the colors you want to use, then carefully cut them out.  Don’t waste the colored paper.  Try to cut out your shapes along the edge of the paper, so the rest of the piece can still be used again.

DON’T GLUE ANYTHING YET, WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE ALL YOUR PIECES.

Step 3:  Compose your picture

When you have all your cut-outs made, Compose them on your paper to make a picture.  You can rearrange them until you like the way the colors and shapes balance on the page.  You can overlap the paper cut outs if you want to.  Matisse never glued his shapes down until he was completely satisfied with the composition. 

Step 4:  Glue your cut outs in place

When you are happy with your composition, start to glue the cut outs down with your glue stick.  Lift them up one at a time and glue them back down. 


Examples of Matisse Ocean Collage 

 

 Class Examples of Ocean Collages

Afterwards

Please count the items before you leave the room (scissors, glue sticks and pencils), and ask kids to look for missing items.    Ask the kids to pick up all the large or unused pieces of colored paper and return them to the bag.   PLEASE SAVE ALL UNUSED PAPER AND LARGE SCRAPS FOR RE-USE.  Put them into the box in the library.   Take all projects back to the Art Lit area, do not leave them in teachers’ rooms.  Once the projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on it.  Folders will be on the counter. 

Thank you!                                                                                                               January 2018

Eric Carle

Eric Carle

(Calendar at bottom of post)

• Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, Eric Carle moved with his parents back to their native Germany when he was six years old.
 • Eric Carle has illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also
wrote, and more than 132 million copies of his books have sold around the world.
 • The themes of his stories are usually drawn from his extensive knowledge and love of nature—
an interest shared by most small children.
• Eric Carle has two grown-up children, a son and a daughter. He divides his time between the
Florida Keys and the hills of North Carolina.

(Use the BIO sheet for more information. At bottom of post) 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? 1967, written by Bill Martin, Jr.

This is Carle's first illustration for a children's book. After seeing one of Carle's creations of a red
lobster for an advertisement, author Bill Martin, Jr. requested Carle illustrate this book. Carle gladly
accepted as he wanted children to know the joy that can be found in books. Here he used
commercial tissue papers which could be found in forty shades.

 1,2,3, to the Zoo, 1968

Carle submitted this wordless book to editor, Ann Beneduce, for publishing and was pleasantly

surprised to receive a contract. This launched the beginning of Carle's career as an illustrator of children's picture books as well as a long working relationship with his editor. After discovering that commercial tissues fade in the sun, Carle began to personalize plain white archival tissue papers with rich colors and texture.

 The Very Hungry Caterpillar, 1969

Inspired by his first book contract, Carle submits a story about a green worm to his editor. She
suggests that he use a caterpillar which might be a more appealing insect. After bouncing ideas back
and forth with Ann, Carle exclaims "butterfly!" and this classic story is born. With over 41 million
copies sold since 1969 this book has been translated into more than sixty-two languages.

 Pancakes, Pancakes!, 1970; re-illustrated 1990

Jack wants some pancakes, but first he must gather eggs from the chickens, wheat from the farmer,
flour from the miller, milk from the cow, etc. His mother shows him how to cook and flip them, and
hungry Jack knows what to do with them next.

The Tiny Seed, 1970; re-illustrated 1987

Here Carle's collage pictures dramatize the life cycle of all plants, as one tiny seed grows into an
enormous sunflower, which then produces more seeds in its turn. Can anyone tell me what color you
get from mixing red and yellow? What colors do you think Carle used to create the flower? That's the
beauty of his work. It can be duplicated by children!

Eric Carle Bio

Vocabulary words: Collage, Texture, Contrast

Eric Carle is an American illustrator and author. He is famous for writing and illustrating children’s books, many about animals. He was born in 1929, and when he was little, his family moved to Germany. He moved back to the US when he was grown up, and he has a son, and a daughter.
Eric Carle’s first book was published when he was 38 years old. He loves animals, and most of his books are about animals. Some of his most famous books are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, 1 2 3 to the Zoo, and Brown Bear Brown Bear What do You See? . He started the first museum in the United States that is filled with nothing but art from children’s picture books. Eric Carle makes most of his illustrations with collage. Collage is when the artist tears or cuts paper into pieces and glues it down to make a picture. This is a self portrait Eric made of himself using collage.

 He paints plain tissue paper, then cuts or tears it into pieces, then glues the pieces down to make pictures of animals and other things.
The way he paints the papers gives them lots of texture. Texture is what something feels like - is it smooth or rough, is it soft or hard? An artist can draw or paint textures on a picture to show fur, or feathers, or scales, or whatever he wants.
Look at his picture of a bear.

Can you see all the texture on the animals? The squiggles and the stripes? Would the picture look different if the artist had just used a solid color? What did he do to make the background look more interesting?

Eric Carle makes his animals and bugs stand out from the page by using lots of contrast. Contrast is when things look very different from each other, so you can see them very easily. Eric Carle does that by making the animal and the background different colors. His books often use a white background, like he does in this picture of a cat.

See how the cat stands out from the white background?
Sometimes Eric Carle uses color in the background, like he does in this picture of the Grouchy Ladybug.

Can you see how he made the colors of the leaves different from the colors of the ladybug so she would show up?
For our project today, we will try to use texture and contrast to make our collage pictures stand out and look more interesting.

Templeton Elementary School Art Literacy Program

Eric Carle Project

Getting ready

Presenters, first thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall. That way we know where the art carts are at any time. Presenters should only be coming in at a time they have officially signed up for. Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the supplies you will need. If they are not all there, we should have more on the counter, ready to take. You may wish to take one of the tall cardboard drying racks with you to class to bring back the artwork in. (If the rack is still full of another class’s work, but it is dry, please look at the teacher’s name on the back, and put it in the folder for that class.)

Also make sure you have the presentation folder. Inside should be: the project instructions, the instruction sheet to show on the overhead, the artist bio/presentation, samples of the artist’s work, and the samples of this project.


Desk protector sheets (30)
9x12 sheets of tag board (30)
Bag of tissue paper strips (1)
Bag of pencils (30)
Plastic boxes of crayons
Bag of black sharpie pens (30)
box of bug stencils
empty bowls to use for tissue strips
Flat end, stiff paint brushes (30)
Dixie cups (15)
Jug of watered down glue (1)
Pencil sharpener (1)


In the classroom, ask the teacher if it is best to set up the kids’ places for them, or hand out supplies and have them set it up. Each student starts out with a desk cover sheet, a sheet of tag board, a pencil, a sharpie, and crayons, either their own or Art Lit crayons. (Since we have 8 boxes of crayons, and we need to have 2 carts of supplies at once, each cart will only have 4. Kids can use their own crayons in class, and the Art Lit crayons can be for kids who don’t have any.) Figure out how you will hand out the stencils to the kids who want each one. They will have to take turns. (There may be 2 copies of several.) For Kindergarten, presenters may wish to draw the stencils on the papers in pencil in advance, and hand them to the kids to go over in Sharpie.

Put a very small amount of watered glue in each dixie cup. A half inch or less is probably enough. Hang onto them until it is time to collage. Put a handful of tissue paper pieces in each bowl for table groups to share.

The Project

(Things you might want to say to the kids are in purple.) Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go along. Present the artist to the kids and show his work. Then show them the samples of our project.

We will be making a collage of a bug. You will draw a background for your bug, and it can be sitting on whatever you want. You are the author and the illustrator, just like Eric Carle. Try to think of a story for your bug. Is it daytime or nighttime? What is your bug doing? What is he sitting on?
You can draw your own bug, or you can use a stencil. (Show them the choices.) If you want to draw your own, it should be a large, simple shape, so you can fill it in with collage.

Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in pencil on the back of their paper. Then they either use a bug stencil or draw their own bug with pencil. If students need a pencil sharpened during the project, please do it for them. Once they have a good pencil outline, they go over it in black sharpie. Remember to put in the eyes.

Next they will color the background with crayon. Make sure the little ones understand not to color inside the bug shape. They don’t have to color it all in, or make it solid. It can be however they like.
Once they are finished with the backgrounds, collect the sharpies, the pencils, the stencils, and the crayons. Hand out the bowls of tissue paper strips, a cup of glue for each pair of students, and a paint brush to each student.

Instruct the kids to think about what colors they want to use for their bug before they start. Point out that if they use the same colors as the background, the bug will blend in, and if they use different colors, the bug will stand out. Instruct them to try to tear the paper into small pieces to fit the shapes on their bug. They should use the brush to put a bit of glue on a small part of the bug at a time, cover that part with tissue paper, and then put down more glue. They should overlap colors of tissue paper to make the bug look very solid. When they are done applying paper bits, they should go over the whole bug with a thin coat of glue. Not too much.

You might say:

Now that you have your background done, try to use colors for your bug that will contrast with the background, colors that are different so the bug will stand out from the background. Think about how you want your bug to look before you start gluing. Do you want to use one color on the legs and another color on the body? Do you want to make the bug’s body look like stripes or spots? After you think about how you want it to look, start by brushing just a little bit of glue onto part of your bug. Then tear little bits of tissue paper to fill in the part with glue. Then put glue on more of the bug. Try to put lots of tissue paper on your bug so it is all filled up. It will look good if the paper overlaps. The paper on top will stick if you brush just a little bit of glue on top of it.


Afterwards

Have students return all the unused tissue paper scraps to the bag to be used by other classes. If there is leftover tag board, keep it clean to be used later. Please keep the stencils as flat as possible to make them least. If one gets torn, please let Laura Cox know so she can replace it.
Please count the items before you leave the room (brushes, sharpies, bowls of crayons, and regular pencils), and ask kids to look for missing items. We have almost no money to replace missing supplies.
Once the projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on it. Folders will be on the counter. We may need the artwork for display during the year, so we don’t want to leave it in teachers’ rooms, because they may send it home. We will get all the kids’ artwork back to their teachers before the end of the year to go home with them.
Wash the paint brushes well so the glue does not dry on them, and put them back in the brush container. Try to leave the supplies on the cart as ready as possible for the next presenter.

Thank you!
September 2017