Eiffel Tower Line Drawings

marz paris pinable

Guess what? The Eiffel tower is not hard to draw. Our sixth graders drew the Eiffel tower, then created a Paris scene in the style of American artist Marz Jr.

The Art of Marz Jr.

We looked at the Marz Jr. website and noticed that many of his illustrations feature detailed black line drawings of famous architecture, such as the White House, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the New York Stock Exchange.

The focal point is often black line on white, contrasted against a simpler black line drawing on a brightly colored background.

 

Marz Jr.'s illustration of the New York Stock Exchange.

Marz Jr.’s illustration of the New York Stock Exchange.

Materials:

  • white paper (we used copy paper)
  • Sharpies
  • construction paper, 12″x18″ – yellow, orange or light green
  • scissors
  • glue sticks
  • reference photos of the Eiffel Tower and Paris

Day 1: Drawing the Eiffel Tower:

We began by looking at this close-up photo of the Eiffel Tower. I asked the students to look closely at the metal work, beginning at the bottom of the tower. The entire tower is made of metal ‘X’s!

They lightly folded copy paper vertically (‘hot dog’) to create a line of symmetry, then used Sharpie for the directed draw. We drew from the bottom up, starting with the ‘rainbow’ arch, to the first viewing platform, to the ‘legs’, to the second viewing platform, and then up to the top. X, X, X, X……..

 

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Day 2: Create Paris Scene, Cut and Collage

Using iPads, students looked at Google images of Paris. They used Sharpie to draw simple background scenes on colored construction paper, then cut out their Eiffel Towers and glued them on with glue stick.

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The project took two 40-minute classes. It was a very successful project with no prep and minimal clean up.

The project was inspired by Marz Jr. projects in this post on the shine brite zamorano blog and this post at Deep Space Sparkle.

If you are really into Paris, check out my series of Paris-themed art (and cooking!) projects from art camp last summer. And definitely check out Cassie Stephens’ Paris unit on her elementary art blog.

Enjoy!

Art + Cooking Camp: Degas, Sculpture and Chocolate Fondue

We had a fabulous time all week at my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. On the last day, we wrapped up our sculpture project and made yummy chocolate fondue.

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A couple of campers wanted to make animal sculptures. They used foil and plaster or white Sculpey polymer clay to create their creatures. Not so Parisian, but I love how they turned out.

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The recipe for chocolate fondue was the easiest of all our recipes this week: 8 oz. of chopped semi-sweet chocolate heated with 1/3 cup of half-and-half. Pound cake cubes, whole strawberries and sliced banana tasted delicious dipped in the warm chocolate.
So much fun!

Enjoy!


Let’s Go to Paris! Art + Cooking Camp
Day One: Crepes and Monet
Day Two: Madeleines and the Eiffel Tower
Day Three: Meringues and Degas
Day Four: Cherry Cake and Pointillism

Art + Cooking Camp: Cherry Cake and Pointillism

 

 

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Bonjour! Here is an update on Day Four of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. Today we tried out pointillism and made cherry clafoutis.

Pointillism

Pointillism is lots of fun for kids. They love the idea of creating art from dots of paint. We looked at pointillist artworks under extreme zoom at Google Art Project. Click here to see the extreme close up of Seurat’s ‘The Circus’ and click here to see Signac’s ‘The Port of St. Tropez’. For the art project, we did this fun Signac lesson with coloring sheet from the Practical Pages blog. The kids dotted their sheets using damp Q-Tips and pan watercolors. They filled in the tiniest areas with dots of colored marker.

One student made a pointillist cake! She lightly sketched her design in pencil, then filled in with dots of watercolor and marker. When it was dry, she erased the pencil lines.

(note: if you are looking for a whole class pointillism assignment, check out this Seurat mural project).

Cherry Clafoutis

We made a cherry clafoutis – a lovely French summer dessert with a texture that is a cross between a cake and a custard. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE. Surprise – the kids LOVED pitting fresh cherries!

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Coming up later this week: the last day of art and cooking camp. Chocolate fondue and the completed Degas sculptures!

Art + Cooking camp:

Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Enjoy!

 

 

Eiffel Tower Art Project for Bastille Day!


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I just finished my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. The kids loved to make these printed Eiffel Towers. The project is inspired by this fabulous post at the Cassie Stephens blog (please check out the post – it has excellent directions!).

We used white craft paint and 1″x2″ pieces of mat board to print our Eiffel Towers. When dry, we added detail with chalk pastels and hand-made stencils.  Finally we added pastel fireworks outlined with glue and glitter.  Some kids stuck on gummed stars to make the Parisian night sparkle.

Just in time for Bastille Day on July 14!

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The kids loved this brief video of fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

In my one week Paris-themed art + cooking camp, we made crepes, meringues and madeleines! Click here, here and here to see our other art and food projects (with recipes).

Au revoir!

Enjoy!

Art + Cooking Camp: Meringues and Degas

Today was Day Three of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. We began by making meringues and ended by beginning our Degas-inspired sculptures.

Meringues:

Meringues are really fun to make. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE (AND VIDEO!). We had lots of practice separating eggs. Then we whipped those egg whites and sugar up, up, up into glossy peaks, and piped them onto the baking sheets using a pastry bag and a star tip. The kids had a lot of fun making ‘custom’ giant and mini meringues, and trying to make letter-shaped meringues.

making meringues

Unfortunately, meringues take forever to bake – at least two hours at 200 degrees F. Then they have to cool. So we won’t taste the completed meringues until tomorrow. Not the best choice for a three-hour AM camp. It was humid today – another meringue no-no. Oh well, at least we didn’t bake them on the last day of camp.

Degas-inspired Sculpture:

We talked about Degas. Degas was a French artist who is famous for creating snapshot-like pastel artworks of racehorses and ballet dancers. Unlike the other Impressionists, he did not focus on the quality of light, and created his work indoors (Actually, Degas did not consider himself an Impressionist). After his eyesight started to fail, he switched to sculpture. He initially sculpted his famous ‘Little Dancer Age 14’ in wax on a wire armature; it was later cast in bronze.

We created wire and foil armatures and covered them in plaster wrap. Some kids are creating dancers and some are creating animals. This took about an hour.

 

degas sculpture art campTomorrow we will make cherry clafouti and finish up our sculptures.

Enjoy (and bon appetit!)

Do you like to cook? Have you taught anyone to cook?

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