Mixed Media Art Lesson Based on "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" and William Kamkwamba

Our Students are doing a unit on Global Inventors and coincidentally I watched the movie on Netflix about this young man.  At the age of 14 William figured out how to generate electricity bringing light and pumping water to his small starving village in Africa.  

I Love the illustrations in the book by Elizabeth Zunon - she used oil paint and paper collage.

Every year we do some Eric Carle projects and students create bright tempra painted paper with patterns for Eric Carle Collage.  This worked our perfect for this project, but you could use patterned scrapbook paper, tissue paper, wall paper, etc...

We read the book, watched a few short videos on You Tube about William and then got started.

Supplies:

9 X 12" White paper

Collage paper

Glue sticks

Oil Pastels

Colored Pencils

Sharpies

Pencils

Scissors

They were asked to create a pencil sketch with whatever parts of the story they wanted to illustrate.

I tried to show several things in mine - theirs were simpler.

Next add the collage paper in a few places before using the oil pastels.

Once you have your paper glued on begin adding the rest of the details.

I mentioned that the oil pastels can mix with other colors and also that smaller details should be done with the colored pencils or sharpies.

It was challenging for them to get their ideas on paper, but I think they did a great job!  They also enjoyed having choices of materials to use.

 The water is coming from the windmill - symbolically - What a great idea!

Some finished 3rd and 4th Grade Art:

A successful and fun mash up of the freedom to use unrealistic colors like Eric Carle and their Imagination and Symbolism inspired by William's story and Elizabeth Zunon's illustrations!