Serving Art Educators
and Students Since 1994
Hands in Art
Unit: Hands Around the World - Symbols of Power - Protection - Identity
Lesson Series: Give Your Students a Hand! Lesson ideas for all grade levels
Grade level: Middle School through High School
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Submitted by: Grace Hall
Title: Pen and Ink Doodle - Patterns
Grace levels: All level (this example is a high school student)
Students draw contours of hands and fill with pattern, symbols/motifs that will communicate something about themselves. In this example, negative space was painting with watercolors.
For younger students, patterned hands could be cut out and mounted on Construction Paper
Submitted by: Cecilia Laureys, Marywood Palm Valley School, Rancho Mirage, CA
Project: Fantasy Handscapes Drawings
After drawing of hands from life, students created a fantasy/surreal handscape applying the knowledge gained in the life drawings of hands. Lesson is suitable for middle school grades and up. See Lesson Plan.
Click images for larger views
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Submitted by: Jan Hillmer
Project: Alexander Calder Wire Hands
Grade level: Upper elementary through middle school (even high school)
See Niki de Saint Phalle twist below
Middle School example submitted by Carol O'Neil |
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This this lesson is adaptable to middle school and high school. Last year Jan had her 5th grade students do a hand 'self-portrait' - just their hand and some object which tells about them (soccer ball, book, tennis racquet, etc.) These were 8-1/2" x 12" (21.5 x 30.5 cm) , in Oil Pastels
These were mounted on 4" (10 cm) ceramic tiles with hot Glue Gun
Middle school example - Submitted by Carol O'Neil -
is from Sculpture Wire
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1. One hand was drawn using pencil tool |
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Here is my revision.
Prints 9. Change dividing line to white if desired (as shown in sample).
Extension to the Hand Henna Tattoo Lesson: Use the paper hand in a collage showing a merging of cultures - a sharing of ideas. Make a second paper hand with personal symbols and combine both in a composition (maybe showing elements/images from both cultures in the negative space - magazine pictures - whatever - or simply a painted background. See the example from My Place Asia Australia
Consider other Rock Art Cultures - Native American symbols and patterns. Use with Cave Art Lesson See some resources from Bradshaw Foundation
Plaster Cast hand idea from Susan on Long Island: Plastercraft
Note from Jan Hillmer: They trace their hands 3 times, overlapping is fine. Then they draw 3-5 lines from one side of the paper to another, breaking up the largest spaces. The students shade each space with Colored Pencils. I encourage my students to figure out their own 'rule' for shading - for example, darkest towards the middle of the page or darkest towards the bottom. Then they pick out a color group and shade! We start this early in the year and keep it available to work on as other projects are completed - instead of 'free art.' (from post to Art Education list serve 9/1/05)
Hand Self Portrait - Lesson by Jan Hillmer I had my 5th grade students do a hand 'self-portrait' - just their hand and some object which tells about them (soccer ball, book, tennis racquet, etc.) These were 81/2" x 12 (21.5 x 30.5 cm)," in Oil Pastels
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Objectives: To help younger students understand and to illustrate the difference between warm and cool colors.
Materials: 12x18 (30.5 x 46 cm) white Drawing Paper
Procedure:
Niki de Saint Phalle inspired Wire Hand Sculpture - personal portrait - from Judy Decker I got the idea for this lesson by looking at Blue Magic by Niki deSaint Phalle. You could use any imaginative wire shape. I chose to write this up as a hands lesson. Make a wire hand sculpture (from traced outline of hand and wrist) and hang a symbol in the center - Symbol can made from Moist Clay - Sculpey polymer clay - paper cast - Tooling Foil
Mehendi (Henna) Hand Design Scratchboard - From Kristen Puhl (student teacher) My cooperating teacher just did a lesson with Gold or Silver Scratchboard
Surreal Plaster Hands by Bunki Kramer - Los Cerros Middle School. Upper elementary through middle school. See images on Los Cerros Middle School site.
Kaleidoscope Cloud Dance - Movement lesson grade K through 4 - from Kennedy ArtsEdge See Introductory Hand Sculpture idea. Have digital camera ready to take picture of these temporary sculptures. Use this as Interdisciplinary with Science - as a lead in to a unit on Weather.
Paper Hand Cast Lesson- Elementary to middle school Make a plaster mold of hand - then when dry cast with paper. Lesson has pushing pulp into the mold. Loosely molded sheets of handmade paper may be used too - leaving some paper around the edges if desired. Students could also carve symbols into the plaster mold to be picked up by the cast paper sheets for an interesting relief sculpture. Do more carving into plaster for a middle school lesson.
Hands of Character Elementary
Hands Sculpture in Clay Lesson Plan [Archive] - looking at hands of Rodin Utah Museum of Art - Middle school and up. Expressive hand sculptures - looking at hand gestures. Hand of the Artist in Clay - by Jeannie Sandoval Create a hand sculpture in clay. Research an artist and decorate the hand using that art style for inspiration. The hand project gives a great opportunity to learn about the style of an artist of interest to the student. Hand could even become surreal.
Submitted by Tina Grimes A project I did one time was Clay Hands. We rolled out slabs and traced around the students' hands and cut them out, then they could move the fingers around, if they wanted to, or just leave the hands flat and smooth out the edges. Once the hands were bisque fired I had the students paint them in a way that would tell me something about them. One student liked cows so she painted a cow pattern. Another liked baseball so he painted his hand to look like a baseball. And so on. They really had fun with these, and there is the added bonus of having their hand preserved in Moist Clay, so to speak.
For middle school through high school adaptation, roll our thick slab of Moist Clay. Cut out hand. Shape hand into desired pose. Prop up fingers if necessary with wads of newspapers or scraps of clay. Build up palm of hand and add knuckles. Shape wrist and portion of arm by rolling our and fusing a cylinder of clay. Hollow out thickest part of hand and attach to wrist section. Tie in art of Rodin - expressive hands. Bisque fire - then paint to express "self" - or an emotion.
Hands - Photography Lesson Ideas
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. After realizing that his artwork gave them "clues" about him, they decided to trace their own Hands using Sharpies, and give clues about ourselves. After tracing hands they added words, symbols and patterns with sharpie markers. 
, too. Or 
(also Mehendi) henna decorations. Students did tracings of their hands. Overlapping in an interesting way was suggested. Designs were done in 
and 
. Wet in wet 
while helping them to understand the use of line in art. A black paper with white splattered paint was used, but white paper with red (ochre) splattered paint would make a nice impression also. 
and 
could be used too. 
by Judith Cornell, PH.D. who is from San Francisco. It discusses the spiritual light from within the self which comes from ALL religions and encompasses the circle as the common ground for of all religious artworks. It doesn't just cover eastern philosophies but ALL philosophies of religion. See 
on black.
.
could be used for reference for this lesson. For variation. photograph the students hands. Students will then draw the photograph and include a drawing of their hand drawing it.
. The students glued and plastered the hands to a wood base and painted with 
the writing hand in the position of holding an object. After cast dries, you can 
(painted wood base or 
painted base. Dow board could have a layer of 
. Background- a painting on 
. Note: These would be striking with the hand left white and the drawing a black line contour drawing (
and with a 
. Students manipulated the digital image in 
, from one edge across to the opposite side, dividing the largest spaces into smaller spaces. These lines will also go through the hand tracings. Then pick 4 colors ( any type of color scheme works here) and color each space from dark to light (start darker in the angles and fade out towards center). It's particularly good for working on colored pencil values.
then select and arrange the ones they want on good colored drawing paper. Transfer hands using 
on the back. Dave has them make a square composition that can be turned in any direction. The negative space and letters are painted with tempera. Hands are outlined with fine point Sharpie. An alternative idea would be to do collage - cut the negative space away and mount on a contrasting colored paper. Letters could also be cut paper. Most of Dave's students use their initials.
by Martene Agassi, 
, 
, 
, white 
Submitted by Stephanie M. Corder
/
- - even built up 
- or bright colored 
dipped in 
/water mix) to thicken it and paint in bright colors (a la 
). Paint symbol with bright colors and patterns and suspend in center of hand with 
. Stick wire ends of wrist into a wood base painted white (or light color) and write words on the base about self - or positive character traits. Paint a border design around the base (a la 
(on both sides) - put small hole in ends with awl - and tie in with fine 
.
using 
and paint brushes, students mixed colors right on their hands, and when they were satisfied, they made the prints on a strip of paper. All the strips were then stapled around the edges of the bulletin boards.
