Year of the Dragon Art Projects
2024 is Chinese New Year Year of the Dragon so here are some easy lesson ideas to get you started
ACTIVTY #1 Modelling with playdough. Baby Dragon and Dragon Egg
Set Up- Playdough- divided into balls on a tray. Chopsticks or Satay Sticks. Old junior scissors (optional)
This one will get the hands warmed up for the year! Great for hand strengthening and fine motor for littlies and I’ll be using this as a starter to tune my older students make into some 3D shape forming before I launch them into using real clay. Start guiding your Preps and Kindergarten students to make a ball (Dragon Egg) you can then ask them to make smaller balls for the different parts of the dragon. I use old junior scissors and chopsticks or blunt satay sticks as tools. Show them how to shape a ball, flatten it, roll and pinch, make impressions in the clay.
I’ve used green playdough which I found in a whole tub of just green at Officeworks. Red is a lucky colour in Chinese culture so red would also work, dragons are fantastical creatures so can be any colour but to start I like to restrict to one colour, especially if you’re reusing with other classes as otherwise the poor class at the end of the day will end up with a mushy multicoloured mess.
To make the budget go further we’re making baby dragons so I give the kids half a stick each. I bought 2 buckets which have 6 stick each. If you have more than 24 in a class you’ll need to ration more.
Once the clay is distributed, get each kid to break into 1 larger ball, 2 medium and 4 small. So 7 in total- I know I only have 5 in the pic below but I forgot about the wings. If you want a little dragon egg or pearl make it 8.
1 large is the body,
2 medium the head and tail and the
4 small will give you 2 legs and 2 wings.
Pinch the large and one of the medium balls into egg shapes.
Sit the large egg up on it’s base, this become the body.
Roll the other medium ball into a sausage shaped tail.
Lay the medium egg on it’s side and using scissors (optional), cut/shape a mouth and horns. Then use a chopstick or the round end of a satay stick to make eye indents and nostrils. Sit on top of the body and attach and smooth.
Shape 2 of the small eggs into legs and smoosh to attach. Attach the tail and curve it around the body. Pinch along the top of the head all the way along the tail to look like spikes.
Use the sticks to add texture, overlapping to look like dragon scales.
With the final 2 balls (the ones I originally forgot about, whoops), flatten and pinch one side to make it look more like a fan shape. Use the side of your stick to indent 3 lines in a fan shape. Attach 1 to each side of the dragon body. Ta da! Baby Dragon.
Now if they finish early they can add more eye details, a moustache, decorate an egg by pushing patterns into the playdough. Let them explore and play- you’ll probably find they animate their dragon, give it a little voice. You may like to photograph them- or do a cute Baby Dragon group photo. Then get them to mush it up and get it ready for the next group.
Now as you want them to be independent explorers I’m going to print out these photo’s as a laminated reference for the table- but really my intention is to get them engaged and using their hands not the end product. I’ve shown you step by step so it’ll help you jump in and help those struggling. If they make a bird or a rabbit instead that’s cool!
I’ve started a Pinterest board with more image ideas and videos of clay dragons if you want to explore this further. Polymer Dragon eyes is a popular crowd pleaser!
ACTIVITY #2 Ink Dragons
So really I want the students to be exploring materials. I want to see them swirling those dragon tails around on the page, being free, exploring mark making. I’ll have my sample above but will do an even more simplistic one as well. It’s about the swirls- the marks, the fun- not the realism.
This activity would work with brush and ink, stick and ink, charcoal, watercolour or even pencil. As it’s the first lesson I want to contain the mess and spills so I’ll be putting out ink dabbers with pencils for detail and for writing names on work. Working with ink also gives a cultural connection to Chinese traditional art. I’ll also put a stack of A3 paper and have a drying rack labelled with their class for drying work. Make sure kids write their name on paper before they start. I’m using A3 paper as I want them to have space to swirl those dragon tails. Ink dabbers are great as kids can draw with them just by turning upside-down and giving a gentle squeeze- you might have to set them up for success by explaining not to squeeze too hard or that low mess thing goes out the window. Provide reference images for Chinese Dragon Ink Drawings to offer a choice from the detailed to the simplified.
For more Dragon Art projects I started a collection on Pinterest here
ACTIVITY #3 Pixel Art Dragon
Pixel Art is great and suprisingly young kids get this too- I wouldn’t have at the same age but these kids have grown up with pixels so they really get it and it’s great for developing their spatial planning skills. All you need is graph paper and coloured pencils, markers or twistable crayons. Tip: If you’re running low on graph paper you can photocopy it. I will have my sample on the table but let them explore poses of their own. Maybe an egg shape with gem stones is enough of challenge for some. Reference images are a plenty if you google Dragon Pixel Art. Print a range of samples for those who want to start with a guide before exploring their own design. My tip with pixel art is get students to start with the eye, otherwise they can run out of squares for the details if they start from the outline first. For more Dragon Art projects I started a collection on Pinterest here.
I love Pixel Art as a back up lesson in case I’m away unexpectedly. Reference sheets printed out, graph paper and only access to the coloured pencils.
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