Animals as pets
Art Making Activities
Activity 1: Memory versus observation drawing ES1/stage 1 -Memory drawing only, Stage 2/3 both drawings
For this activity you can use a drawing tool like lead & colour pencils. You may have a pet at home or at a friend’s home that you can draw from memory. Try to get a visual picture in your mind of what the animal looks like and how it behaves. Is it stretching, climbing, eating, sleeping, playing? Draw a couple of quick sketches from memory and when you are happy spend a bit more time drawing a good copy and pencil in as many features as possible- remember to think about drawing textures for the fur, feathers, or scales. Use colour pencils to show the pet animal colouring. The next drawing can be done while watching the same pet. This is an observation drawing and it is quite hard drawing when an animal is moving, particularly if you have a very active pet! You might have to wait until they are sleeping and relaxed. Draw from observation using a lead pencil and then later do the colouring in colour pencil.
Activity 2: Watercolour painting of a pet on holiday (stage 3)
Imagine your pet is going on a holiday all by himself/herself. Where would he/she go? If you took a holiday snapshot with a camera what would you see? Paint this snapshot showing what is happening and where it is happening. Start by painting the main background colours in the scene using the water colour paints and a large soft watercolour brush- a good tip is to wet the paper first with a damp sponge or clean brush. When the background is dry start adding the details in foreground using smaller soft brushes and paints. You might also want to use watercolour pencils (these can be dipped in water and used like a brush or you can draw when dry and then add water over top of lines later). You can make this a crazy picture if you want and add things that would be very bizarre. Give the picture a title.
Activity 3: Design a 5 star house/dwelling for your pet ( Stage 2/3)
Start by choosing the type of pet you would design a unique house for. Draw your ideas for the space and layout of things that would go in the space (beds, toys, feeding bowls, etc). Draw your ideas for special things that could be used for feeding, sleeping, eating, playing etc. If there is time it would be great to try and build the space and objects you have designed. To create this it would be interesting to collect recycled materials to make your 3D sculpture/model. Start by building the walls and floor of the space with recycled cardboard boxes (this can be painted with acrylic paint). When that stage is finished you can use other CLEAN and NON TOXIC collected materials (fold, cut, paste) to fashion the objects that will go into the space. Take other students on a tour of your pet house explaining your ideas and how things are meant to work. TIP: The size of your model will need to decided first with the teacher and you will need to think about where the sculptures can be kept in the classroom without being damaged.
