OuiSi · Visual arts

Make the same mark

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Grades K–5 Teaching 30 min Plus 3 to set out, 3 to clear Class any size Set any Prep paper and a pencil each

set out 3′ Find one patch 5′ Four ways 12′ Again, better 8′ Close 5′ clear 3′

Goal: Children find one patch of texture in a photograph and work out how to make it on paper with nothing but a pencil. Technique gets invented first and named afterward.
Materials: One OuiSi Photo-Card set, one card per child. Paper and one pencil each — the single pencil is the constraint that does the work.

K–1: One patch, two ways. Steps 1, 2 and close — about 18 min.
Grades 2–3: Four ways, then the naming and the second attempt — the full 30 min.
Grades 4–5: Then match a second card's texture using only the methods on the board.

1 · Find one patch

5 min

Cards face up, about six per child. Each child takes one.

Find one patch on your card where you can see a texture. Not the whole picture — about the size of your thumbnail.

Put your thumb on it and keep it there.

Narrowing to a thumbnail is the setup. Copying a whole photograph is drawing, and copying one patch is mark-making, which is the teachable thing.

2 · Four ways

12 min

Four boxes on the paper, roughly thumbnail size.

Make that texture in the first box. Any way you like.

Wait until most have one, then change the task.

Again in box two — and you cannot do it the same way twice. Then two more.

Box two is where the lesson starts. The first way is whatever came to hand, and being forced off it sends a child back to the photograph.

Show me what your hand did to make that one.

3 · Again, better

8 min

Collect the methods on the board, in their words first.

How did you make that? Tell me what your hand did, not what it looks like.

Lots of little lines. Dots. Pressing hard. Round and round. Rubbing it. Now give the names — hatching, stippling, pressure, scumbling, blending — after the thing has happened.

Pick your closest one. Make it again, bigger, and closer this time.

Doing it twice is the lesson. A first attempt is a guess, a second with a method in mind is practice.

4 · Close

5 min

Cards and papers side by side. Everyone walks once round the room.

Find somebody else's mark you want to try. You do not have to say whose.

Borrowing is the point and should be named as allowed. Technique spreads this way in every studio.

Watch for

Drawing the picture. If a bird appears, go back to the thumb. The patch is not of anything.
One way, four times. Children repeat their first method slightly smaller and call it different. Ask what the hand did differently and it shows itself.
Comparing children's marks aloud. Compare each mark with its card instead. The card is the standard and it is nobody's work.
Pens, color, erasers. One pencil. The restriction is what forces the invention.

Adapt

Motor needs — a thicker pencil or a grip, and bigger boxes. Large marks carry the same lesson.
Multilingual learners — it all runs on showing. Step three can be answered by making the mark in the air.
Children sure they cannot draw — this is the lesson for them, and worth saying. Nothing here has to look like anything.
Visual impairment — choose strongly contrasted or raised texture, or work from a bigger printed patch.
Want it harder — one method, five levels of pressure, from barely there to almost tearing the paper.

Curriculum links. Making and controlling marks with a drawing tool · Describing texture in words · Close observation of a small area · Revising a first attempt once the method has a name.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.

Screen-free. No codes and no devices. Works with any OuiSi Photo-Card set.
Extension. Keep the four boxes and build a class texture bank on the wall, labeled by method. It gets used all year.