Scientific Illustration Project + Leaf Identification Unit

This is a fun way to combine art and science. I developed this project this year for the Grade 4 Ontario Science curriculum: Communities and Habitats. This could work for students all all grades. 

After working through some fundamental science vocabulary about communities, habitats, and ecosystems, we studied local trees: coniferous and deciduous and how to identify trees based on the characteristics of their leaves. 

We spent a lot of time outside observing and documenting trees and collecting leaves. We then learned about scientific illustration and how to label, classify, identify, how to use a magnification bubble, and how to ask questions about what is being studied.

The final project:

Students create a poster about their chosen leaf. They draw a scientific illustration with relevant labels, questions and a magnification bubble. We got to laminate our leaves and add them to the poster. The students loved it and learned a lot!

Large group Terry Fox Poster activity

 This in a September/October project that's great to do with elementary students as a large group activity. 

Step 1: Tape a large piece of paper to the white board (in the place where the projector will project)

Step 2: Project the Terry Fox image that you want onto the paper

Step 3: Trace a light pencil outline of the image 

Step 4: Ask a student to go over the light pencil outline with a black marker

Step 5: Show the class an inspiring Terry Fox video and ask them to write down a quote that they feel inspired by (or to write their own sentence about what Terry means to them)

Step 6: Using different bright coloured- markers, have students come up one at a time to add their quote or sentence to the poster

Ancient Basswood (at Broadview and Danforth)

This is a pen & ink project that I just finished- an old basswood that I must have passed hundreds of times and always found inspiring. This particular tree can be found at Broadview and Danforth avenue in Toronto. My neighbourhood and my city are usually where I get my ideas and inspiration, specifically the natural spaces, urban parks, trails and trees of the Don River watershed. 

Here's the illustration in it's early stages:

And here's the final:

- Patrick

Mandolorian Helmet (Randolorian)

This was a fun and challenging project! I've never worked so creatively with cardboard before and I discovered that it can do so much more than I expected. Being stuck at home during social distancing, I've had some time to try projects out of my comfort zone... this is one of them.

I followed this tutorial: https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-cardboard-costume-helmet/ and kind of made it my own. I like to call it a Randolorain helmet...

- Patrick

Happy Earth Day!

Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Being stuck inside, we were missing our local forest. So we built it using recycled cardboard and paper mache.

Here are some photos of our neighbourhood forest building project:

Painted Rocks

Painted rocks is an easy and fun project that can be done with any age group- and just vary the expectations as the artists get more experienced.

Start by collecting rocks and cleaning them. Next, get the art supplies you will need:

Acrylic paint, brushes, water cups, reusable sheet.

Choose an idea for the project to develop expectations/criteria. We started with a simple idea: colours - and since we've been learning about Egypt lately-  ancient Egypt! We chose red and blue as our main colours and added gold for the Eye of Horus rock.

- Patrick

Ancient Egypt Projects - part 3

For the third edition of our social-distancing-based Ancient Egypt Projects, we decided to try to make a little sculpture of a falcon. Ours is inspired by some Ancient Egyptian artefacts, gold and turquoise falcon sculptures.

We started with pipe cleaners, masking tape and card stock base.

Then, we made a rough form of a falcon.

Next, we taped it in place and started to add masking tape to make it look more and more like a falcon. This type of sculpture involves adding on material to a frame. 

Keep adding tape until you are satisfied with how it looks. 

Now it is ready for paper mache. Just tear up some scrap paper, get some glue and water, and apply layers of the torn up paper dipped in the glue mixture with a paint brush. Cover the entire sculpture. 

Now it is ready to paint!

Here is our finished falcon. And we had so much fun, we made another one to try out different colours:

- Patrick

Ancient Egypt Projects - part 2

A series of Ancient Egyptian-inspired projects would not be complete without some pyramids! This is a simple activity and can be a lot of fun.

Start by using a ruler and pencil to draw a square-based pyramid net (see below) on cardboard;
then draw or paint on the pattern that the stones make;
next, cut it out and connect the sides together by folding and then glueing the tabs.

Square-based pyramid

- Patrick

Ancient Egypt Art Projects!

Being stuck at home with my kid due to this COVID-19 craziness has been a great opportunity to explore new arts and crafts projects. Some of these would work well in the classroom and as enrichment projects for different grade levels (for example: art for JK, SK, GR1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Social Studies for Grade 4...).

This will be the first fo several Ancient Egypt-themed arts and crafts ideas. "Melty Beads" is a great concentration craft and has served us well as a calm-down activity. This required an iron, and a "melty bead" kit (available online to order- or in most arts/crafts stores).

We started our Ancient Egyptian Gods series with a design of Horus, the falcon-headed God of the Sky. We added a sun behind him and chose the colour red to symbolize his domain.

We then chose the kind, crocodile-headed God of the Nile: Sobek. This was a lot of fun to do, trying to fit in a design of a crocodile head within the confines of the bead template. We chose light blue to represent the Nile river behind Sobek, and greens to show the lush vegetation growing along the river.

A highlight of Ancient Egyptian culture, the sarcophagus, was a natural choice for another image. We noticed that Ancient Egyptians used a lot of stripe patterns in their work, so we added some ours.

Then we did an image of Bastet, the cat Goddess of the home and fertility. We added the Great Pyramids as a pattern at the bottom as well.

Lots of fun, and a great calm-down activity that keeps kids enjoying concentrating, working with colour, pattern and creative expression and building fine-motor skills and hand-eye coordination- as well as enhancing their interest in Ancient Egyptian culture.

- Patrick

White Spruce: an Art and Science Studio Project

This is a pen and ink drawing of a white spruce (picea glauca) tree from my neighbourhood. It is an old one, taller than a four-storey building. 

A good studio project that combines art and science is to try to draw a specific tree species, where the student researches details about their tree, such as:

- is the species native to the region?

- what to the needles/leave/cones/seeds look like?

- what does the bark look like?

- how old does it typically get?

- how tall does it typically get?

- what is the scientific name for the type of tree?

Then the class can do a gallery walk and learn about different kinds of trees and how to differentiate between them. After, if the project works out, this could make a great art show!

- Patrick