Under Water World

For this class, our assignment was to create an underwater world scene using black scratch-art paper. The teachers first introduced the lesson with a discussion of what animals we might find in the ocean, reviewed the important vocabulary words for this lesson, and presented some examples of scratch art for students to look at. Then each student was provided with a pointed wooden dowel (this was used to draw on the scratch paper) and a small sample of the scratch paper to practice drawing on it. After we had practiced with the sample piece of scratch paper, we began our own scratch art.

From a variety of pictures, we chose an underwater creature that we would like to draw. Once we had chosen our preferred picture, we sketched the picture in the center of a folded 8.5 x 11 blank paper. Then we put a piece of the scratch paper in between the folded 8.5 x 11 and traced the picture with the pointed dowel to the scratch art. After we had traced the picture to the scratch paper, we used the dowel to scratch our drawing onto the black scratch paper; adding details and an appropriate background using lines, shading, and pressure. The following is a photo of my underwater world scene.

An extension activity with this scratch art lesson would be in geography when students learn about the seven continents. Students would choose the continent of their choice and draw it on a piece of art scratch paper. Then students would do some research on their choice of continent and write some interesting facts about the continent on an index card. When finished, the students’ drawings would be posted on a bulletin board including their index card with the facts written on it. Then the whole class would view the drawings and each student would explain an interesting fact about their continent.