Indian Peacock Watercolour

This is a project I teach when our Grade 4's are learning about India during one of their curricular Social Studies unit. Grade 4 is one of my favourite grades to teach (in Alberta, Canada) because it's Social Studies curriculum teaches a number of countries around the world, so I can connect art projects very easily. 

This watercolour project was inspired by a henna tattoo of a peacock I saw one day.

In 1963, the peacock was declared the National Bird of India because of its rich religious and legendary involvement in Indian traditions. It is a symbol of grace, joy, beauty and love. The significance of peacock is attached to cultures of India, Far East, Ancient Persia, Greek and Christian. In Hinduism, the image of the god of thunder, rains and war, Indra, was depicted in the form of a peacock. (source)

So I demonstrated how to draw this elegant, stylized peacock. Then students created a decorative border. They outlined everything in Sharpie then painted these using watercolours. Once dry, I added some glitter to the borders for an extra decorative touch.

In this unit, we also made mehdi (henna) hands!

 

Japanese Cherry Blossom Paintings

This cherry blossom painting lesson is one of the most popular on my blog according to my stats and hits from Pinterest!

There are a few steps so definitely plan for some drying time in between layers. You'll need watercolours for the background blue sky and then tempera or acrylic for the branch and blossoms.

See my original post with more photos of the process HERE.

I cut long pieces of thick white paper ahead of time. Basically cut posterboard in half or so. Use a plastic container and hold it down on one end and paint all around it with blue watercolour (or watered down tempera paint). This will create the full moon. Let the sky dry.

Then water down some brown tempera to an ink-like consistency. Blob some on the end opposite the moon and then, using a straw, blow the paint across the paper to create an organic looking branch. Let dry. then use pink or purple tempera to create tiny flower blossoms all over the branch with a small round brush. 

Some Grade 7-9 results! 

These look absolutely gorgeous hung together and get a lot of 

positive comments from staff and parents. 

Henna Hands

 

 

 

This is a project I do every year to support the learning of the Grade 3's regular classroom teacher. They study India in Social Studies so I do a big "Art of India" unit each year with them. This year I did henna hands again, but was inspired by a student to add the lacing around the border. He did it once during class when he had some free time, so I thought it would look nice as a border to their finished henna hands.

 

Students watched a video of an Indian woman applying mendhi for a wedding. Then we looked more specifically at the types of patterns and designs used. They were given a hand template to trace (I've had kids trace their own hands before but because this age can have such small hands, there wasn't much space for them to draw their designs! So now I give them a photocopy of a large outline of a hand. They cut this out (harder than it seems for some of them!) and use this as a template. Then they trace it onto some brown construction paper (I order specifically multicultural/skin coloured construction paper for this). Once drawn, they draw their designs directly using a fine tip brown marker. Then they cut them out and glue stick them to fuchsia/purple construction paper.

 

For the border, they used a single hole punch to punch holes around the edges. Then they used yarn to lace all through the holes. They really enjoyed this part!

Peacocks in oil pastel

Grade 3 artwork

Grade 3 students are studying India in Social Studies. I have an "Art of India" unit that I teach at this time in order to cross-collaborate and reinforce with the kids what they're learning in their regular classroom. I absolutely love Indian art- so rich and decorative.

So we looked at one of India's symbols: the beautiful peacock. 

I helped teach them how to draw a stylized peacock. This type of drawing is accessible to all levels of artist. They were free to expand on this drawing and add as much detail as they wanted. They practised first on scrap paper (see below) then they drew their good copy on black construction paper (9 x 12"). They outlined all their pencil lines in black oil pastel. Then they coloured everything in using oil pastels (we use Pentel brand and I'm pretty happy with them- they're inexpensive as well.)

Once the drawings were complete, I mounted them on colourful construction paper 

and glittered the border gold for some extra sparkle!

Grade 3 work: