Here There Be Monsters Art Lesson Plan

Stormy sky paper: Show students how to use medium flat brush and paint a wash of watery blue and black paint on 9x12 watercolor paper. Blot a bit with a rag to get a cloudy effect. 

Ocean paper: Students mix a few shades of blue and green, and paint the paper. 

Squid paper: Paint the paper in a mixture of orange, red, pink and white. When dry add texture by splattering with a darker shade, using a dry stiff paint or toothbrush

1.) Demonstrate how to achieve the white-capped wave effect by slowly ripping the ocean paper from right to left. Show how to guide and control the tear to create the "motion" of the waves. Create 3 horizontal pieces and position them on the stormy sky background. 

2.) Teach students how to draw a giant Kraken on the back of the painted squid paper with it's long arms flailing every which way. Show them how after cutting it out, they will be turning it over to reveal the painted side, and the drawing will be reversed. 

 3.) Next, Students cut out the Kraken in one piece and flip it over. To make things easier, younger students could also cut out some of the more difficult arms separately and arrange them as they want in their pictures. 

4.) Show students how to position their Kraken between the waves. Do not yet glue down so as to allow flexibility with the final addition of the ship.

5.) To create the ship, have students cut out it's hull from brown paper. Used here, is a small scrap of painted paper resembling wood, leftover from another project. A reminder of how to never throw away painted paper scraps! The masts are made out of flat toothpicks - the taller, center mast is two toothpicks glued together. Glue all masts to the back side of the ship. Let dry. 

6.) Next, demonstrate how to lightly draw some sails on white paper and cut them out. This might take a bit of time for students to get the sails sized just right and glued onto the masts. There are many configurations of sails, so any way that students want to do it is fine. Don't forget a flag, maybe even a pirate's flag. 

Positioning the ship and the Kraken: Now it is time to have some fun positioning this poor, unfortunate sailor's ship caught in the clutches of this fearsome and colossal Kraken! Show students how to experiment with positioning and gluing down the capsized ship tilted, or even upside down, low in the water or high in the sky - Mayday! Mayday! 

Kraken eye: Students cut the one-eyed monster's giant eye out of construction paper and glue the pieces together. Don't forget the little white highlight which helps to bring this killer Kraken to life! 

Trim: Trim the edges to the original size of the background paper, and mount on larger black construction paper. 

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