Hokusai: lines and patterns

materials:
sharpies
colored markers
paper

Artist Background:
Hokusai was one of the great Japanese woodblock print artists. We watched this really great animated video from youtube here about the life of Hokusai (I used the ladybug to project it off my iphone screen. It would have been better if I brought in my speakers, though). **NOTE ABOUT THE YOUTUBE VIDEO: stop before the credits! There's lots of sumo wrestler butt cheek. It's totally innocent but might be distracting for the kids :)

After the movie, I brought up a picture of his famous The Great Wave woodblock (pictured at top), and we talked about how it's divided into sections: the background, which is plain, and then the waves themselves. Here is the 2-slide slideshow I used. The second slide I am so sorry to say is an image I found on pinterest and have not been able to track it back to the original artist, so there is no artist credit... but we used his/her interpretation of this work as our inspiration, dividing the waves into sections and filling each with different patterns.

How: have the kids look at the Great Wave woodblock and begin drawing waves on their paper. (It helps to show them on the board how to just start, drawing a great big wave across the middle.) Then from there, they can sub-divide that wave and even throw in a mountain (Hokusai's is Mt. Fuji) or volcano... Once they have waves, they can then fill them in with whatever patterns they like. You might want to have some kids come up to the board and share a pattern...

James Rizzi

Rachelle Smith explored the vibrant and cheery contemporary art of James Rizzi (powerpoint here) with the sixth graders in this fun lesson. Using some simple drawing tips explained in the slideshow, Rachelle asked the kids to draw either people or buildings using bold lines and bright colors. The kids used pastels to draw their pictures, and then filled in with watercolors. 

Polly Jones

Cheryl Collins put together an amazing art lesson for the fifth and sixth grade, using artist Polly Jones' multi-media work as inspiration.

LESSON TIME:55 MINUTES

 

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

WATER COLOR PAPER

PENCILS

RIPPED NEWSPAPER SCRAPS (APPROX 2 INCH) 3 PER STUDENT ALL SHAPES

LIQUID WATER COLOR PAINT( I CHOSE 4 MAIN COLORS AND LET EACH 4 PACK OF STUDENTS TO ADD ONE SPECIAL COLOR LIKE SPARKLY RED)

BRUSHES

WATER DISH

PAPER TOWELS FOR BLOTTING

GLUE

 

1. TO GET STARTED ORGANIZE THE KIDS IN GROUPS OF 4 FOR SUPPLIES.
2. HAVE THE GROUP SEND UP ONE OF THE GROUP FOR PAINT , THEN ONE FOR WATER ...REPEAT UNTIL ALL ARE OUT
3. A COUPLE STUDENTS CAN HAND OUT BRUSHES AND WATER COLOR PAPER
4. HAVE THE STUDENTS WRITE THEIR NAME ON THE BACK
5. PRESENT THE POWER POINT ON POLLY JONES~
6. THE NEXT STEP ~I BROUGHT IN A TENNIS BALL, BASKETBALL AND A PEACH FOR THE STUDENTS TO VISUALIZE LIVE OBJECTS AND TALKED ABOUT WHAT INSPIRED POLLY JONES( REAL LIFE OBJECTS)
7. THE STUDENTS THEN CAME UP WITH THEIR OWN ROUND OBJECT FOR EASE ....A DIFFERENT FRUIT OR SPORT LIKE SOCCER OR BASEBALL
8. THEY THEN DREW A LINE ACROSS THE PAGE HORIZONTALLY ( TO REPRESENT A COUNTER)
9. THE NEXT STEP WAS TO DRAW THEIR OBJECT ON THE COUNTER
10. THEN THEY TOOK THE NEWSPAPER(WHICH REPRESENTS DAILY LIFE)AND GLUED PIECES TO THE COUNTER AND ON THE OBJECT. MAKE SURE THEY GLUE WELL ...AL EDGES SHOULD BE DOWN
11. THEN THE NEXT STEP WAS TO USE THE LIQUID WATER COLOR AND PAINT THEIR OBJECT. THEY WILL PAINT THE NEWSPAPER TOO!
12. THE STUDENTS THEN COULD CHOOSE A DIFFERENT COLOR  FOR THE BACKGROUND...

 

AFTER DOING THIS PROJECT AND USING LIQUID WATER COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME...YOU COULD USE THE WATER COLOR SETS, BUT THE LIQUID IS MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE AND FAST I THINK. IT IS SCARIER FOR SPILLS, BUT WE DID WELL IN BOTH MY CLASSES AND HAD NO INCIDENTS:)

  

Powerpoint is here.

Op-Art

Artist Bridget Riley (slideshow here) was Rachelle's inspiration in creating this pen-and-ink experience. It was a hit - the kids enjoyed creating this optical illusion so much that many of them continued to experiment with making these drawings on their own after the lesson.

Note: within Rachelle's slideshow is a lot of information on op-art, as well as a detailed step-by-step that really walks you exactly how to do this project. Awesome.

Materials: paper, fine tip black sharpies, or black ball point pens

Whistler: Moody Nightscapes

Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights, 1874

Nocturne, 2012 - sixth grade

Supplies: watercolor paper, liquid watercolor (make sure and grab the gold!), brushes, foam brushes (you know, those rectangle ones), little plastic bowls for paint and water, salt (there are 8 small salt containers in the art cabinet).

Slideshow here... and below, information to go along with it. I put lots of stuff in here so feel free to omit/simplify as needed.

James McNeill Whistler was one of the famous american expatriate artists of the nineteenth century. Born in Massachusetts in 1832, he was raised mostly outside the United States as his father was an engineer who built railroads around the world. The family lived in Russia when he was a boy, and the winters were very cold. He often got sick and had to soak his feet in hot water. Instead of complaining about not being allowed to play, he used the time to draw picture after picture of his feet, until he could do it perfectly. 

He came back to America for college, where he attended the exclusive military academy West Point. Whistler did horribly in all subjects related to science and war, but flourished in his art classes. After being kicked out of West Point at the end of his third year (apparently due to a particular disaster in his chemistry class) he moved to Paris to take art classes, and finally settled in London.

One of his most famous paintings is of his mother, Harmony in Grey and White but commonly known just as Whistler's Mother. (Fun fact: this painting is currently valued at 30 million dollars). It's so famous that it's often parodied (see motorcycle slide)

Whistler loved music, and said this: "Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick and choose… that the result may be beautiful – as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony."   

We discussed how when you take music lessons, you start by learning the notes and the scales. These notes work together to either make harmonies (sounds that sound nice to your ear) or dissonance (when the sounds clash together). In the same way Whistler sought to make his art harmonious, arranging his "musical notes" - color, and form, and composition - to make his paintings beautiful. If you look at Whistler's Mother, you can see this harmony (he used mostly greys, whites, and blacks, and the picture is perfectly balanced in its composition). Compare it to the next slide, Woman with a Hat, by Matisse. You can see how this painting is deliberately not harmonious, especially compared to Whistler's. It might be fun to have the kids compare/contrast the two paintings, bringing out the point that different artists use the SAME colors, brushes, paints, even shapes - and yet through the way they choose to use these elements can achieve wildly different paintings.  Just like how musicians use the same notes, keys, etc. and yet can create wildly different sounds depending on how the composer arranges the notes.

This activity focuses on the moody, harmonious landscape paintings he did, called Nocturnes. A nocturne is a musical composition inspired by night. (You might want to play Debussey's Claire de Lune or Chopin's Nocturnes for the kids as they paint...I have a CD you can borrow.) Included in the slides are: Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, painted in 1875, Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge (more fireworks!), Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights and Nocturne in Blue and Green. Whistler had a friend who lived by the water. They had a deal that whenever the night weather was just right for his paintings, he'd knock on their door and their sons would row Whistler out onto the Thames river and he'd paint right there, his canvases laid flat on the floor of the boat.

Activity:

1. Using pencil, have the kids draw a straight line across their paper to indicate the horizon (the line that separates sky and ground). If they want they can put in some buildings or trees or a bridge (for a good simple example, look at the Blue and Silver Nocturne - the last slide.) Stress to keep the shapes of these things SUPER SIMPLE. Like rectangles or squares or triangles. Any detail really won't be visible once they paint, and they'll run out of time if they worry about windows, doors, etc. at this point. Then have them draw the reflection of these simple shapes right below, mirrored/upsidown.

(this is a good example of SIMPLE)

2. After this step have them use the foam brushes to quickly wet their entire paper (this will help the paint absorb into the paper and spread more easily). Then, have them use the watercolors and paint the night sky/river. Encourage them to choose a color family for their painting (I set out bowls of purple/blue or blue/green, plus the gold) to mimic Whistler's tonalism. Point out how they can play around with how vibrant the colors are by using more/less water, and when their paint is wet, they can add the salt to make an interesting texture/bubbled effect.

3. Whatever is at the horizon will be the darkest part of their painting. Have them wipe any water off their brushes and use the undiluted watercolors, mixing the two colors together (purple + blue, or blue + green) to make a dark color to paint their buildings, etc.

4. Once this dries for a couple of minutes, add the gold lights. You might want to point out in the last slide how the lights at Whistler's horizon are like little gold blobs - and the reflections are right below, like blobs pulled down (this probably won't make sense unless you are looking at the slide :) ). Lights, fireworks, it's all fun.

(note the effect of the salt to the left and right of the hand)

(this student decided to just make a simple gold bridge rather than a reflection. Again, the salt effect in the sky above the bridge)

Family Fun's Van Gogh

This is from February 2010's issue of Family Fun magazine - it looks like a fun activity (albeit quite time intensive... probably this would need to be spread out over a couple of art sessions). If you need a slideshow to go along with this, click on the George Kelly Slideshare link for the Van Gogh presentation; additional historical background can be found in the other Van Gogh lesson(s) in this link.

Contour Drawing

This lesson does not have a powerpoint that goes along with it, as the focus is on improving drawing skills through two simple exercises. (As an art docent, you needn't feel like you must have spectacular drawing skills yourself to be able to teach the lesson. The focus is on improving observation skills.)

Supplies:

pencil, 2 pieces of paper, and have the students have a folder or notebook ready to use to hold over their drawing

One of the tricks for drawing what you see well is turning off what your brain would have you draw, and increase the connection between what your eye actually sees and your hand holding the pencil. The first exercise for practicing this is called Blind Contour Drawing.

-Have the students take off one shoe and put it on their desk at an interesting angle. (YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHOOSE A COOLER DAY FOR THIS SO THE ROOM DOESN'T GET TOO STINKY!)

-Have the students hold their folder with their non-drawing hand so that it covers their paper. You want for them to NOT see what they are working on, as counter-intuitive as this may seem. Then instruct them to pretend that their is an invisible string connecting their finger, guiding their pencil, and their eyeball. Have them very slowly pick a spot to start drawing, and trace the edge of the shoe and then the details, all without picking up the pencil from the paper or break eye contact with their shoe. They should NOT be looking at their picture. This exercise forces the artist to focus on what they are seeing EXACTLY without being distracted by trying to make their drawing match. After about four minutes, finish; they may uncover their papers. The pictures should look strange, more like scribble or super-abstract art than anything realistic. This is an exercise in looking and observation. Do this a couple of times.

-Now that they have practiced observing in such a strict way, they can put their folders away and get a new piece of paper. Having the students remember the idea of the invisible string connecting their drawing hand with their eyes, instruct them to draw their shoe; this time they may look at their paper. Have them go slowly, drawing the edges and details of their shoe exactly as their eyes see it. The students should take about 30 minutes to complete this drawing and if they are really focusing, there should be very little talking as it requires great concentration. It is amazing how drawings will improve when the students focus on that invisible connection between their hand and their eyes.

Klimt's Ladies & Gentlemen

This is a super fun art lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. Depending on how quickly your kids work, it may take two classes.

Supplies needed:

-pastels

-paper

-gold paint & paintbrushes

-scissors

Background information on Klimt that goes with our Powerpoint slides:

Gustave Klimt was born in 1862 and died in 1918. He was considered to be a Symbolist painter, meaning that his work emphasized imagination, dreams, symbols, and spirituality over realism, and his work was highly romantic.

He lived in Austria, and was born the second of seven children, the son of a gold engraver. When he first entered art school, his art was realistic, but as he grew artistically his work become more symbolic and mysterious. With his "Golden Phase", where he used gold leaf to make his paintings shine, he gained great critical success, but he was quite reclusive, and wrote little about his work. As he painted, he worked in a loose robe rather than normal clothes (kind of like some of the gentlemen he portrays).

After his death, his paintings have become incredibly valuable: slide # 3, Adele Bloch-Bauer, sold for 135 million dollars in 2007, the highest amount to date that someone has paid for a work of art.

Procedure: I followed the process described on the Deep Space Sparkle website, essentially having the kids first make a large drawing in pencil of either a man or a woman. We referenced the slides in the slideshow to talk about how their dresses and robes could be fantastical and loose - not too tied to reality in terms of depicting the shape of the body beneath. After they drew their figures, they colored them thickly with pastels (have them press hard to get vivid colors), then cut out the figures.

The final step is to cover a large piece of paper with gold paint. The paint can be solid or swirled - it's totally up to them, and if they want they can further embellish with pastels.

Making A Modern Mona Lisa

(adapted for use George Kelly from http://jmhs.mars.k12.wv.us/lewisclark/hadsell/lesson1/index.html)

Learner Outcomes:

o S Students will explore and analyze how the human face is proportioned

o Students will be able to perceive how the painting “Mona Lisa”, by Leonardo da Vinci, uses classic facial proportions, and learn historical background of this masterpiece and its creator. We’ll also discuss briefly the history of portraiture in art.

o Students will demonstrate their understanding of facial proportions by creating a portrait

o Students will further explore this topic with a creative writing assignment

Materials:

12” x 18” white drawing paper

pencils & erasers

oil pastels

Powerpoint presentation: portraits, Leonardo da Vinci & the Mona Lisa; facial proportion diagrams

Lesson:

Introduce portraiture as an art form used throughout history. A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other kind of art form that’s meant to show what someone looks like. People have always felt compelled to represent themselves and each other in art.

(if there is internet access: Portrait Detectives, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/portraits/index.html, is a great interactive site – would be good to do together and would provide about a 5 minute discussion)

Slide 1: These are cave paintings made in Lascaux, France, that are thought to be 16,000 years old. What do you think the creators of these thought about themselves?

Slide 2: This is a self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh. What can you tell about him from this picture?

He was somewhat disturbed and painted this as he was recovering, in a mental institution, from an incident where he cut off his ear and sent it to a woman he admired as a present. Weird.

Slide 3: This is a portrait of the royal family of King Charles IV, in Spain, made by the court painter, Goya in 1800. Do you think that Goya respected the King and his wife and children? Can you tell how he felt about them by how he painted them? Was he trying to flatter them?

Slide 4: This is a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. Born the illegitimate son of a peasant woman, he was apprenticed by one of the most famous artists in Florence when he was in his early teens. Quickly his talent became apparent, and he’s generally thought to be the most genius human being to have ever lived – an accomplished artist, inventor, scientist and philosopher. He loved to experiment and kept many journals recording what he learned. He wrote with mirror writing, to keep his work secret. Among his inventions – the helicopter and hang glider.

Slide 5: This is the Mona Lisa. Painted in 1503, this work became famous almost instantly. The shadowy background is called sfumato, a word which means “Leonardo’s smoke.” Notice the plain dress, the extremely smooth surface of the canvas (you can’t see any signs of brushstrokes, not even up close), and her beautifully proportioned face. Many people notice her mysterious smile and wonder what it is that she’s thinking. What do you think?

o Turn lights on and discuss facial proportion. Point out that the eyes are in the MIDDLE of the head rather than up on the forehead. Have the students use their hands to measure their own facial proportions and lightly sketch on scratch paper where the hairline, eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, ears, etc. fall.

Refer back to the Mona Lisa and have students examine the painting…what kind of proportions did Leonardo use? Does it work?

Hand out the large drawing paper and have students lightly draw an egg-shaped oval, and proceed to make their own reproduction of the Mona Lisa – except how they think she would be dressed/coiffed today.

Add color with oil pastels. Have the students really take their time and visually develop the background, etc.

Writing activity: Write about the woman you’ve just drawn. Do a character portrait with words – describe her life, who she is, why she deserved a portrait, what accounts for her mysterious smile, the background of where she’s posing, etc.

Cezanne's Still Lifes: Overlapping Objects

^5th and 7^th Grade Art Lesson

written by Michelle Smit for Duniway Elementary, adapted with permission for use at George Kelly Elementary by Lynne Millar

Principle: Depth and Value

Concept: By overlapping objects within a composition, an artist can create the illusion of depth. By changing the value of the color across an object within a painting, an artist can make an object look 3-dimensional.

Objective: To draw and color in with pastels a still life in which the objects are overlapped to show depth and colored to show changes in value.

Supplies:

*One 12x18-inch piece of black drawing paper per student

*Pencils and erasers (for light sketching of still life objects)

*Rulers

*Oil pastels

*Fruit, such as a large apple or grapefruit, a lemon or lime, large squash, and an object such as a vase or bowl. Note: you’ll need about 5 objects per arrangement. How are the desks arranged? Are the students in groups, where you’ll need to provide more than one arrangement?

*Desk spot lamps or flashlights

*Black or other solid colored fabric

*Hairspray (for use as a fixative)

Pre-Class Prep: gather supplies

Set-up:

*Make a still life arrangement and place the bowl or vase amidst the fruit, on top of your fabric. Put your light source behind the arrangement or at an angle that provides interesting shadows.

*Have pastels, paper, rulers and pencils ready for distribution.

Lesson: Demonstration: Discussing Depth and Value

Share with the students that this is a lesson to fine tune good depth and strong value changes into their art. Talk about what depth and value are. Depth refers to the amount of “distance” projected by a composition. Ask them if they can think of ways to arrange objects in a painting to achieve a feeling of depth? Discuss ways like overlapping objects, which is what they will do today. Overlapping is a technique used to get some depth in a composition.

Define value for the students. Value refers to how dark or light something is. Warmer lighter values are shown on an object where the light is hitting it; as you move across the object it gets darker and cooler as you move to the shadow cast by the object. It is the change in the value of the colors applied to an object that make it seem real and appear more realistic or 3-dimensional.

Show the power point slides of Cezanne’s still life paintings. Give a little background on Cezanne (see end of the lesson) and point out to the students how Cezanne painted the colors the way the light made them appear rather than the color our brain would tell us it is: for instance, look at his apples. Are they perfectly red? Or does the light change the color?

Turn off the overhead lights and turn on the lamps and shine them on one side of the still life arrangements at each table. Have students note how the value of the colors across the objects in the still life change from the lit side to the shadow side. Talk about how the colors look warmer nearest the light and coolest in the shadows. Turn lights back on and get ready to draw!

Students: Drawing the Still Life

Pass out a piece of black paper, a pencil, a ruler, and a box of pastels to each student.

Explain that they will draw the composition they see on their tables on the black paper using their pencils (remind them to draw lightly-they will be going over the drawing with pastels.). Before they begin to draw, they need to know:

1. Draw BIG Shapes – fill the paper with their drawing! No tiny fruit and veggies in the center of the paper.

2. Overlap each object – Each object should overlap the one behind it. When they begin drawing they should start with the object that is closest to them, because you will see all of its edges. Then add the one just behind it, and so on.

3. Put in a horizon line – Now that their objects are on their papers, have them place a line just behind them to suggest the edge of the table in the distance. See how this line is placed in the samples. Students may use rulers to draw in their table top “horizon lines”.

Talk briefly with the students about the shadow side and light sides of their drawings- they need to know which side the light will be coming from in their drawings (right or left). Note for them that where the light hits the objects most directly, there will be what is called a “highlight” or very light spot that may even look white (show them on the pastel sample, too.) Have them lightly pencil small (penny size) circles on each of their three objects where they think the highlights should be.

Step 3: Painting the still life with Pastels

If everything is going well, your students should have some nice drawings that show the outline of each overlapping object. They should be able to tell what is in the front and what’s in the back (depth). They should have drawings that fill the page- nice big shapes!

Now students are ready to begin “painting” their still life with pastels. This is the step in the process where they put what they have seen and learned about “value” to work. What they want to achieve with their pastels is a change in the VALUE of the coloring across each object that clearly shows that they have light sides and dark sides which, when looked at in total, suggest a fullness and three-dimensional quality. Since they are using black paper, the darker side of their object can even have some of the dark paper show through.

Encourage the students to use color compliments on each object. For example, if they have a lemon in their composition, urge them to use white and yellow on the light side and purple (yellow’s color compliment) on the shadow side. If they want to color their pumpkin or butternut squash orange, have them make the shadow side dark blue. If they have a red apple the shadow side would have green, etc

• A note on using pastels-the more pastel they layer over the black paper, the more bright color they will get. If they want the color to be smoothed together, they can rub gently with their finger to blend.

• Have students start coloring their objects beginning with the one in back first. By working from the top down, they will avoid smearing their work in the foreground.

The table top can be colored in, but because their pictures have a definite light and dark side, they should be certain to leave black shadow shapes on the table that are attached to each object.

When the students are finished make sure their name and room number is on the back of the picture.

After Class: Spray the piece with hair spray to protect against smudging.

Instructions for Instructors

Vocabulary: Overlapping-where one thing is in front of another

Depth-refers to distance in a painting, from what is located in front or in the foreground to what is in the back or background. Changes in depth can be suggested in a number of ways, including:

• Changing the size of objects in a painting

• Changing the amount of detail you can see in the objects

• Changing the color (from warmer in the foreground to cooler in the background)

• Overlapping objects

Shading-a technique for showing different values of light and dark across an object(s) in a picture; a way of making a picture more realistic/3D

Architectural Drawing: Inspired by San Francisco's "Painted Ladies"

"Painted Ladies" drawing by a seventh grader

"Painted Ladies" drawing, seventh grader

"Painted Ladies" drawing, third grade

"Painted Ladies" drawing, third grader

(original lesson found here at deep space sparkle)

Objective: Discuss and define architecture, learn a bit about elements of Victorian Architecture through looking at pictures of San Francisco's Victorian "Pink Ladies" Rowhouses, and create a pen and ink architectural drawing using basic geometric templates.

Supplies: Paper, Pencils & Erasers, Sharpie Fine Tip pens, geometric cardboard templates (IN ART CABINET), Pink Ladies Slideshow

Lesson:

What is architecture?

Architecture is the designing and building of structures, which is a combination of science and art.

Every building that you enter into has been designed by an architect. What kind of things do you think an architect must think about before designing a building? (Ideas may include what a building is for, how the shape of it will help people use it effectively, how the way the building looks fits into the the buildings or landscape). Ask the kids to think for a minute about the buildings they regularly use (home, school, church, stores). Are there features of these buildings that make them attractive? Especially useful? Why do you think our school has a blue corrugated steel roof? (I don't know, btw, but am sure there is a reason!)

Begin slideshow. These are the "Painted Ladies" Victorian Rowhouses, in San Francisco. They are designed in a style of architecture that is known as Victorian, because that is how many buildings in England were built during the reign of Queen Victoria (1839 - 1901) and the popularity of the style caused architects all over the world to imitate it. There was an explosion of people who wanted to live in San Francisco from 1850 - 1901, and during that time there were around 50,000 Victorian homes built in the city. Unfortunately many of them were destroyed during the big 1906 earthquake and fire, but if you drive around the city in the Upper Haight, Fillmore, and Pacific Heights neighborhoods you can still see some really pretty examples.

Scroll through slides, and discuss some of the following information:

You can tell Victorian architecture because the following elements are often included in the design: turrets (those fancy little towers), large windows (some of them are paned with stained glass), decorative brackets, arches and curves, balconies, bright paint colors, and lots of trim.

Ask the students to point out some of these features in the pictures you show.

Additional points of discussion may include:

What do houses like this make you think about the person who designed them?

What were the designers of these homes trying to say?

Activity:

Have the students use the large rectangular cardboard templates to draw basic shapes for their own Victorian creation. Once they have maybe two or three tall rectangles drawn, have them add other elements using the other templates: windows, doors, roofs, etc. After they have the core of their drawing done, pass out the sharpies and have them trace over their pencil drawings. Then they can put aside the templates and add their own fanciful details using their imaginations: turrets, shingles, scrollwork, etc. If time allows, they can add color with markers.

(Practical tip: once the basic shapes for the drawing are down and traced in sharpie - i.e., the rectangle building shapes, make the kids put their pencils away and use just the sharpies for the remainder of the drawing. If they draw the entire picture in pencil and then try and trace it, it will take them forever and they will not finish in one lesson.)