Camouflage hands

At the start of last year I came across the work of Emma Hack in an art gallery.  It totally blew me away... Then I saw her work in the Gotye video and I knew we had to do a lesson based on her work.  My students love painting on each other at the best of times so I knew this would be a hit.  It was also time to showcase the work of an Aussie female artist.

 

I must have seen lessons in the past of the camouflaged hands and filed them somewhere in my brain (as I now realise there are lesson plans on the internet on this) yet I really just followed Emma's method for these and made it up as I went.  Before the lesson we viewed a few videos of Emma at work and watched the Gotye music video.

A word on the paint, we just used washable tempera paint. You can then use the same paint on the paper and the hands and it washes off easily.

What you need:

• White paper
• Paint, brushes, water pots
• Pattern samples
• Camera

How to:

• Get the children to paint a pattern on their piece of paper
• Leave to dry (we did this part one week and the painting hands the next)
• Get the children to place their hand on their patterned paper and then paint their hand in matching colours to camouflage it.
• Take a photo BEFORE they move their hand.
• Email photo to their parents 

Tips : Since they didn't want to move around much once they had their hand in place I helped pass paint, brushes etc. However I only have 10 students at a time so that was easy.  

Variations : I like the children to have fun in my classes so if they say can we paint our faces like Gotye I would say "sure why not?" Parents know what my classes are like and expect messy kids.  This part was optional. The children paired up and painted their faces into the pictures, then I photographed them. Some also did their feet....

The Results:

I love how this project worked out.  It was fun to do and the photos are great.

 

    

 

    

 

 

Cheers

FIONA