Central Primary School Arts Day Kindergarten: Eric Carle- The Grouchy Ladybug

Eric Carle Author and illustrator for over 70 children books

Who is Eric Carle? Most famous books include: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Born in New York and moved to Germany when he was 6; still alive

What is a collage? A collage is an artwork made up of different papers or objects glued together. Eric Carle uses collage to create the illustrations for his books.

How does Eric Carle create a collage? STEP 1: His technique involves painting plain tissue paper with acrylics (might involve multiple times of painting)

How does Eric Carle create a collage? Dried sheets of paper are placed in color-coded drawers

How does Eric Carle create a collage? Will then cut and glue to the page often layering cutouts

Theme of Stories Love of nature including bugs, moon, and sun

The Grouchy Ladybug Started first by putting a blank book together- small page to large page He then looked to nature to think of an example of small to big (ladybug working to a whale)

Art Project: The Grouchy Ladybug

Items Needed For Project: Tag board for background Tissue paper in varying shades of red Cardstock for wings of lady bugs Black construction paper for body of ladybug Googly eyes, two small strips of yarn for antennas, strip of cardstock for grass

Items Needed Continued… Plastic fork to paint with Green tempera paint, blue liquid watercolor paint, and a black bingo marker for the spots on the ladybug. Each child will need scissors and glue bottle. A q-tip will be needed for each child to smooth the glue.

Steps that already occurred… The liquid blue watercolor paint was used to paint the background paper. The body of the ladybug was drawn on black construction paper. A 6-inch diameter circle was drawn on a piece of white cardstock. The tissue paper was already cut into one inch squares.

Next Steps: Have students write their name on back of blue background paper. Next, students will glue the tissue paper squares to cover the cardstock white circle. When this is completed, the children will cut the circle out from the cardstock and then cut the circle in half to form two wings.

Next Steps: Cut the body out of the black construction paper and glue body to the paper. Then glue the wings. Have students then add eyes and antennas with glue to the lady bug.

Next Steps: Glue the strip of white cardstock to the bottom of the page to represent grass and then used the fork dipped in the green tempera paint to stamp out the grass.

Final Step: Have the students use the black bingo marker to create the ladybug spots.

If Time Permits… Then please read the book, The Grouchy Ladybug, to the class Can talk about The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art located in Amherst, MA