Using an Old Brush in a New Way

Lesson Plan Submitted by: Matt Chambers
K-5 Art Teacher in the Roanoke Rapids School District at Roanoke Rapids, NC.
Grades: K - 5th grades

Directions

Step 1) Draw a simple contour shape on tag board and cut it out in one piece. Identify the positive and negative parts of the stencil. K-1 do geometric and free form shapes. Upper grades can handle more complex shapes.

Step 2) Arrange stencils on the drawing paper in a way that looks good to you.

Step 3) Dip a toothbrush in water and tap the brush firmly a few times to shake off excess water (the less water the better). Scrub the brush onto the paint cake. Hold the brush bristles down towards the stencil and, using an index finger, pull back on the bristles allowing the bristles to flip forward thus spattering paint onto the paper around the stencil shape. (alternative method - screens may be made using window screen material fastened to a wooden frame).

Step 4) Pick up the stencil and check your spattered shape(s). If necessary replace stencil and spatter again.

Photo from School Paints

Step 5) Add more shapes, re-use stencils, improve your technique. Overlapping enhances a 3-D effect. You take it from here. Have fun!

Materials:

Tooth Brushes (1 per student) Students can provide their own tooth brush or, like I did, look for toothbrushes in bargain packs at your local "all things a dollar" store. Also needed are Scissors, 4" x 6" (10 x 15 cm) Tag board paper, Drawing Pencils, Drawing Paper, Tempera Cakes or water color kits, and a water supply (I use gallon milk jugs with an opening cut out for dipping and cleaning brushes). Don't forget to use some imagination.

I call this lesson "Using an Old Brush a New Way" or "Stencil Spatter Painting". I use it with all of my students and it is adaptable to any developmental level. The lesson easily integrates with math and science curriculum as well as covering many art specific objectives.

Vocabulary:

• Stencil

• positive shape

• negative shape

• spatter

• pattern

• arrange... etc.

Resources

Several artists who paint in similar styles can be covered if desired. Following are a few:

Jackson Pollock - Pollock would dip his hands in a paint can and splatter the paint on a huge canvas. This is a book on the artist.

Hermann Nitsch - This artist also splatters paint as well as spray paints.

See another lesson on splatter painting with stencils here.

Links

How Stuff Works- This is a paint splatter art lesson.

Deviant Art- Browse through the paint splatter art on this well known website.