In this project, the objective was to create art inspired by Eric Carle's style of storybook illustration. We first made patterns on thick pieces of paper using tempera paint. Next, we created a design illustrating part of a story on 12" x 16" paper. My story was about a giraffe and a meercat that became best of friends despite their different sizes. Then, we traced those shapes onto the pattern paper and cut out them out. Finally, we pasted these shapes onto 12" x 16" construction paper and wrote some text that correlated with the illustration.

An extension project that a teacher could do following this could be to instruct students to create a whole storybook using whatever style and materials they want to. They would create the story and the illustrations. We could also go more into the history and concepts behind storybook illustration to give them inspiration.

These pictures are from a project that was Van Gogh inspired. In the first project (the first picture below), we were asked to fingerpaint and to imitate Van Gogh's style (strokes, composition, texture). In the second corresponding project, we were to imitate Van Gogh's style again. However, this time we used tissue paper (we glued the tissue paper to the construction paper using acrylic matte medium) to make the swirls and black construction paper to make the forground. We were also instructed to use silver sharpie markers or oil pastels to create additional designs. We were then told to frame both pictures on construction paper and place them under a board to flatten. 

I imagine a good extension project could be one that challenges the students to create and define a painting style of their own. The correlation with the Van Gogh inspired project  is the use of Van Gogh's style. The teacher can ask the students to describe Van Gogh's painting style for review. Then, he or she can instruct them to create and define their own painting style. They can fingerpaint, spongepaint, paint with brushes, paint with a pallete, etc. The teacher would then instruct the students to create a small sample of what their style is. Next, they would be given a theme like: "Think of something that makes you feel happy." Finally, they would paint that using the style that they created.