Ladybeetle oil pastel art

 

Lesson Background:

We have been studying minibeasts this term, and so I decided to make one of the weeks all about lady beetles.  We researched them with videos and books, we wrote information reports, and we created these beautiful artworks. I got the idea for the artworks from this website: https://vk.com/album-102299976_245103850

Lesson Materials:

1 sheet A3 art paper, trimmed

1sheet A3 backing paper

oil pastels

a lead pencil

Lesson Steps:

1.  We drew the lady beetle, with me modelling each step as they followed along with a lead pencil. I then showed them how to draw large leaves in the background, which they followed along with, placing them and sizing them according to their own preference.

2.  I encouraged to children to decide how many spots (7, like the most common ones we had read about in our research? Or they could choose their own).

3.  We began colouring the lady beetles by drawing and filling in a large yellow circle on the lady beetle wings, then surrounding it with a thin layer of orange, then colouring the rest of the lady beetle red, trying to make sure there were no white gaps left. After the lady beetle was coloured, I showed them how to use the yellow oil pastel to then go back and, in a circular motion, colour around and out of the yellow spot again, to help blend the yellow/red/orange.

4. I encouraged the children to colour in the leaves using different shades of green and possibly drawing the veins of the leaves in if they wished to. They were then shown how to fill in around the leaves with other shades of green.

5. The children outlined their ladybeetles with black oil pastel.

6.  We stuck the pictures onto backing paper.

Student Artworks: