Safari

For this lesson, we made animals that you may see on a safari, but we made the animals look hidden. First to start the project I made red glasses with a red film on them which will help us see the animals. Next, I selected an animal to draw. I turned the image of the animal upside down in order to draw it on a sheet of white paper. By having it upside-down it was easier to focus on the lines of the animal. It was easier to start from the bottom of the animal and draw up to the head. I used a sky blue colored pencil to outline the animal- you have to use a cool color to draw it in order for the project to work. Sky blue works the best in order to catch the full effect. After I had the animal drawn out, I used red, yellow, and orange crayons and created a pattern over top the image of the animal. The crayons are warm colors, so they hid the blue outline. I drew lines and circles throughout my paper. By using the warm colors on top of the cool colors, it makes your eyes catch the warm colored pattern instead of the animal in the picture. Once I was finished with my picture, I put my red glasses on, and the image of the animal appeared.


This is a picture of my hidden safari animal. The animal I made was a zebra.

For an extension activity, a teacher could use the hidden drawings to incorporate another subject such as math. The teacher could write up a review game and hand out questions to the students. The answers to the questions could be hidden in the warm colored pictures and posted on a board. The students could work the problems, and once they think they have the correct answer they would put on their glasses to see if what they have is correct. This idea could also be made into a class competition, where you would divide the class up and they would compete to see who gets the correct answer.