Anthony Heywood inspired animal junk drawings

Here was another lesson the kids enjoyed last year: Animal Junk Drawings!


In an effort to incorporate a lesson about "green art," I came across an artist named Anthony Heywood who makes huge elephants out of garbage.

Anthony Heywood

My 6th graders absolutely loved looking at Heywood's work and we played a little game of "I see..." They got super focused and those hands shot up when they found something a classmate had not yet!

I always like to include many expamplars during a lesson. I shared some videos of other green artist. These two on Wyland were a huge hit:

Wyland is amazing. He is a huge inspiration to young kids. His mission is to help children fall in love with the ocean and preserve it for the future. 

The last artist I chose was Treiops Treyfid. He is a contemporary artist who makes works from recycled material. His "Animals of the Furture" series is about how unless drastic changes are made, exotic animals will die out and the future animals of earth will be animals like pigeons and rats who easily adapt to human life. This video was a little deep for a 6th grader, but they enjoyed it. Also, it allowed them to see what gallery life is like. 

So here was the project: First I gave students a hand out of a sheet of various animal silhouettes (google: animal silhouettes). 

The challenge for them was to enlarge a small drawing to a large drawing. I showed them how to break the silhouette into quadrants and to draw one quadrant at a time.

Then I had students make a list of 50 items of junk. They moaned a little about this part, but it is essential if you want to avoid students whining that they can think of anymore junk to add to the drawing. I let students share ideas at their table to cut down on time.

Now the fun part! Students added all 50 items of junk inside their drawings (like Anthony Heywood sculpts). This was a great start of the year project because I got to assess their individual drawing skills. The kids loved it because it was creative and allowed them to basically doodle!

Both examples by C.M.