This worksheet is intending for troops who love to draw and paint and who want to learn more about different art styles. The activities here go a bit more in-depth than what is specified in the Junior badge book. The girls will learn about different artists and their styles, and will create several projects. The badge work culminates in an art show for friends and family.

Multi-age troops can adapt these activities towards the Cadette Visual Arts IP.

What You Need:

• Primary color tempura paints (red, yellow and blue) or acrylics.
• Paint mixing trays or small paper cups
• Paint brushes
• General purpose art paper
• Black construction paper or black art paper
• Charcoal
• White art chalk
• Fine point black markers
• Thick black markers
• Scissors
• Tape
• Hand-held mirrors (used for self-portraits, or girls can buddy up and draw their buddy instead.)
• Kneaded erasers (art erasers)
• Oil pastels
• Pencils
• Rulers
• Watercolors
• Water for cleaning, mixing
• Containers to hold water

Objective: Girls learn about different artists and their styles. Girls create drawings in the style of the artists. (For Cadettes, this activity could relate to Skill Builders 3 and 4 for the Visual Arts IP)

a. Paul Klee was a Swiss artist, often called an "abstract expressionist," or one of the original modern artists. His work is difficult to classify. It ranged from pencil drawings to etchings to abstract paintings. Klee was greatly influenced by a trip to Africa, which he said awakened his sense of color. Looking at Klee's paintings, can you describe what an "abstract expressionist" style is like? (Hint, does Klee's paintings of a person look exactly like a real person?)

b. Draw a picture of a cat, a person, or an object, in the style of Klee using oil pastels on white art paper.

c. Many of the masters (Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Da Vinci) created still-life drawings and paintings. Still-life means a painting or drawing of one or more objects. It is a way to gain an understanding of light and shadow, and how they are used to bring depth to a work. Examine a few examples of still life drawings or paintings, to see how the artist interprets the objects. Do you see example of how light and shadow are used?

d. Draw a still life of your shoe, a glove, a cell-phone or any object you have using charcoal on art paper. Concentrate on not just drawing the outline of what you see, but also on some of the shading that you see. (Hint: to do shading, use a light touch and draw parallel lines, very close to one another) Use white chalk to bring out highlights.

e. Claude Monet was a French impressionist, known for his paintings of outdoor scenes and great expanses of natural settings. His early paintings usually had people depicted, but in later years, the paintings did not usually have any people at all. His later work usually shows horizontal areas - sky and land, for example, but with great perpective: roads go on and on, fields are long and vast.

f: Using watercolors or acrylic paints, paint in the impressionistic style of Monet. Divide your paper into at least two horizontal areas. In his later work, Monet did not use black paint, like many other impressionists. Try not to use black. Mix other colors together to give the impression of black.

This corresponds to Activity 4 in the Jr. Badge Book. The girls will draw three self-portaits (face only) using different kinds of lines (pencil, thin marker, thick marker, curved and straight lines.) The self-portaits will be used in another activity, so save the portraits. At the end of the Activity, there should be three portraits for each girl.

a. Practice a technique called "blind contour drawing." Draw a self-portait in pencil by looking into a mirror, or buddy up and draw each other. In blind contour drawing, you draw very slowly, looking only at your subject. You will draw the outline of what you see. For example, if you are drawing yourself, you would look into the mirror the whole time, and not at the paper. If you are drawing your buddy's face, you never take your eyes off of her. (When you get to the eyes, nose and mouth, you may look at your paper only to position your pencil to start each feature.) As you draw, try to connect what you see with what your pencil is doing on the paper, and try to fill the entire piece of paper. (In other words, make the drawing life-sized.)

b. Now use a thin marker to draw your self-portrait, or your buddy's portrait. Note how you use lines - curved, straight, broken, vertical, etc. Again, try to fill the entire piece of paper.  When you are done, was it easier to do blind contour drawing the second time?

c. Now use a thick marker to draw your self-portrait, or your buddy's portrait. Note: with thick marker, it is much more difficult to do a blind contour drawing, because the ink bleeds through the paper fairly quickly. You can use what you learned from the blind contour exercise to draw your self-portrait in thick marker. (You can look at the paper when you draw this time, if you wish.)

This corresponds to Activity 5 in the Jr. Badge Book. It can also relate to the Cadette Visual Arts IP, Technology Activity 5.

a. Looking at the work of famous masters, see how shapes are used in art. In Hooch's "The Courtyard of a House in Delft," you can see many shapes. What shapes can you use to draw people? How about flowers?

b. Textile design also uses shapes to create beautiful works of art. Kente cloth, for example, is woven in patterns that have specific meaning. Look at examples of Kente cloth and see what geometric shapes are used and why.

c. Using oil pastels, create an original design using only geometric shapes. 

This activity explores how primary colors are mixed to create secondary colors.

a. What are the three primary colors?

b. Using tempura paint, start with red and blue. Mix a few drops of blue into a little bit of red. What color do you get? You may need to add a drop of blue at a time until the color become obvious.

c. Using blue and yellow, mix a couple of drops of blue into the yellow. What color do you get? (Hint: it is more difficult to get good results mixing light colors like yellow into dark colors like blue. It is better to always mix dark colors into light, so be sure to start by mixing blue into yellow, drop by drop.)

d. Using red and yellow, mix a couple of drops of red into the yellow. What color do you get?

This corresponds to Activity 6 in the Jr. Badge Book. You will need the self-portraits that were created in the What's Your Line activity.

a. Andy Warhol was a noted American pop artist. You may have seen images of his famous paintings of Campbell's soup. Examine Warhol's "Green Marilyn" portrait. Note his use of color.

b. Using tempura paint, mix secondary colors to use to paint in your self-portraits. Mix enough for a whole portrait! You should have six different colors to use.

c. Starting with the first portrait, choose three colors to use. Paint in the whole face in a one color, hair in another color, eyes in another color. Then paint in the next portrait, using a different combination of three colors. (Each portrait will be painted in a different set of three colors. You may reuse a color, but not on the same portrait, and not in the same combination. For example, in portrait one, you could use red, green, blue; in portrait two: green, orange, purple; in portrait three: blue, yellow, purple.)

d. After your portraits are dry, cut out your image and paste it to black construction paper (or black art paper.) Display your portraits in a row so you can see your Warhol style.

Before your meeting, find a simple, colorful scenic image that would make a nice mural. (Sea life can work well, or if you have a multi-aged troop, the Cadettes can design the image onto graph paper.) Make two copies of the image. Save one image so the girls can use it as a reference for painting. Over the front of the other image, draw a grid in pencil (red or black fine point pen usually works well) using half-inch spacing for vertical and horizontal lines. On the back of the image, draw a grid of 4x5 rectangles (assuming an image of around 8.5 x11 inches.) In pencil, number the rectangles from 1-20. Cut the image into the 20 individual rectangles. This will give each girl two rectangles (assuming a troop of 10 girls.) If you have more girls, find a larger image and cut into more rectangles, or have girls paint one rectangle each. It helps to choose an image that is interesting, but not too "busy." Each rectangle should have part of the image on it, enough to be interesting for the girls to copy and paint. To make it easier for the girls, you can take blank art paper that you will use for the mural and pre-draw the grid pattern onto the larger paper such that the grid pattern on the art paper matches the number of grids on the smaller image rectangles.

a. Murals are often painted using the grid method. The artist draws or sketches a smaller version of the mural image onto graph paper. Then she transfers the image to a large canvas, wall, or banner by drawing a grid pattern onto the larger surface. She can then block out the mural design onto the larger surface by mapping the grid from her sketch tothe grid on the larger canvas. For example, the small sketch might be drawn on graph paper with 1/2"x1/2" squares. The mural might be graphed with 1' x 1' squares. Do you see how this makes helps the artist turn the small sketch into the large mural?

b. As a group, lay out twenty sheets of art paper in a 4x5 grid. Your leader has found a smaller 8.5" x 11" image that you will turn into mural that will be 4x5 papers in size, much larger than 8.5"x11". Lightly number the backs of the art papers from 1 - 20 if your leader hasn't already done so.(One number per sheet.)

b. (Show the image you've selected for the mural to the girls. Explain how you drew the small 1/2"x1/2" grid squares onto a copy of it and how you cut it into 20 rectangles. Give cut-out rectangles to girls) Look at the back of the small rectangles your leader has given you. Take the art papers that are numbered the same. You will paint what you see on the small rectangles on the larger sheets. To do this, you will draw (in light pencil) a grid over the entire sheet of paper (if your leader hasn't already done this part in advance.) Remember, what you paint will be a larger verson of the small rectangle. (Leaders may need to demonstrate or explain this concept again.)

c. As each section of the mural is complete, piece it together so that everyone can see it take shape.  Tape sections together to complete the mural.

This worksheet can take three, even four, meetings to complete, so it is best to plan carefully. To save time, instead of creating a troop mural, plan an art show for parents and friends. The art show can take place in conjunction with a Court of Awards, if you like.

If you use artist's supplies, the activities can get costly. Tempura paints were used for the Warhol activity, but acrylic paints work better (in my opinion.) If you have access to acrylics without having to buy them with troop money, experiment with acrylics instead.

The colors that the girls use for the mural don't have to match exactly, if girls are mixing their own shades of paint. In fact, this gives the mural more interest. However, if you want them to use the same colors that match across the whole mural, then have one girl mix the colors for everyone to use, and be sure to mix sufficient amounts. Alternatively, you could use oil pastels, but again, be sure to have sufficient amounts for the girls to use, and to complete the mural.

Keep an eye on the clock, as time will fly by!