Starry night

These year two and three children have looked closely at the work of Van Gogh. We observed the quality of his line work and found many types of lines. We also talked about how the artist showed space or depth in his work. 

We also learnt about how Van Gogh made his stars look like those he had seen from early photos taken by astronomers at the time.

The children used frottage, wax resist and collage to create our mixed media art work.

Firstly the children were asked to fold the paper in half longwise and draw a wavy line for the horizon. Then draw an odd number of stars surrounded with swirling, dashed lines. 

The children found a textured surface from objects around the room ( I had a pile of convently located objects with textures handy for them to use ) and used frottage ( textured rubbing) to transfer the textural pattern onto their land. These were then painted using watercolour technique of wax resist ( we used the good old tempera discs ) 

Next step was to use collage techniques to add houses and trees in a way that shows depth, just like Van Gogh did.

 

Finally they had to select a backing mount board that enhanced their art work. Some children found that their favourite couloir didn't really work with their actual painting. Around their work they are creating a boarder using pre cut mosaic squares.

They should be finished by the end of next week - we had a little Easter detour with children voting to do a quick pre Easter decoration activity because it is after all the day before Easter and the arts are how we celebrate our culture and special events after all!

Kamishibai theatres in progress room 2

Sculpture in the Park

With Easter looming just around the corner and following closely behind that it is time to share some of the things going on in our art room so far this term.

One of the big things has been producing three sculptures that have been entered into our local council run "Melville City Sculpture Walk". The work we submitted had to relate to the site where the exhibition is being held. This year it is at Heathcote Cultural Precinct. Heathcote used to be a Mental Hospital until some years ago when it became a playground, cafe, restaurant, TAFE, art gallery and studio site. The whole area is somewhat swish and the views from the site on the overlooking the river is beautiful. But long before this the local aboriginal people used the site.






 
Our sculptures represent the way the land has been used has changed over time and will in all likelihood change again in the future. As we made these structures we also talked about how the aboriginal people would have used natural materials to make their houses, as the early settlers would have done. Over time the materials we used to make our building with has changed - modern houses are made of things that don't break down easily like concrete, metal and plastics. We also reflected on how some people are beginning to think of ways to make buildings more sustainable and we tried to show this with the types of materials we used in our structures.




The children worked in small groups with Stella Onderwater who was allocated to our school as an artist mentor, and Karen, one of our parents and myself. The children came up with solutions to building each structure and ways of weaving different materials into each one. Each group reflected on improvements needed from the work of the groups before them. The metal, 'manmade' non sustainable structure proved to be most challenging. There was a lot of discussion about the best, strongest shape required for building.








Finally as you can see we figured it out and we have three amazing structures installed in the park alongside professional adult artists work.



If you get a chance get along to Heathcote, enjoy a stroll around the park enjoying the beautiful grounds and the fantastic art work. The event runs until Sunday 3rd April.

Merry merry christmas

With only a few days left we have frantically finished off paper mâché models and I've opened the last kiln load for the year.

It's been as usual a busy year with lots of creativity!

I have sent home the kids visual diaries with suggestions for drawing activities to keep their drawing eye in over the holidays. 

Wishing you all a lovely relaxing fun filled summer holiday!

This yellow bird looks like how I feel - with my eyes spinning as I try to clean up our school art studio! ;)

Aurora Borialis

One of my year 7classes get a little extra time to allow their classroom teacher time to do extra duties with ICT. Because of this they have got ahead of the other kids. I like to make sure I support their classroom learning in this time so this week we used it to explore the Aurora Borialis to link in with their research of natural environmental features and landscapes.

First of all we had a short discussion to concidering what medium would be best to create the swirling colourful lights. They suggested watercolour and pastels. As we had done a lot of watercolour work I decided that chalky pastels would be the one we would use.

The next step was to explore the medium in their visual diaries and then share their results with each other through a 'studio walk'

when they were ready they used the pastels on black paper to create their Aurora Borialis designs. Once they were happy with their background they created an silhouette of the arctic habitat to glue along the front. 

I think the results are pretty amazing! Don't you?

wild energetic colourful pieces

These art works are some of the figures in motion that the yr6/7 kids have been working on and finally finishing off.

And some Fauve inspired landscapes done using chalky pastels.

A few more birds and some characters from our colonial past.