News from Visual Arts
Now that the Prep students have learned the primary colours, they have now progressed to exploring warm and cool colours. We began by discussing what colours we think of when we are hot or cold, and what colours are in the sun and fire, or what the ocean. Then we sorted some coloured textas, crayons and papers into cool and warm colour categories. We discovered that some colours could be both or neither!
The first activity they undertook was one where they were required to trace the outline of their hand and colour it with cool colours. The background colours were warm to provide a contrast effect. Our next project involved some guided drawing where we copied the style of artist Laurel Burch, who loves to draw cats (also one of Miss Wills’ favourite animals!) Not only did we colour them with warm and cool colours but we also experimented with patterns by incorporating dots, stripes and patches just like fur on real cats.
Most recently we have been undertaking some basic printmaking, the first of which involved blowing bubbles into a water, food dye and washing detergent mixture and taking a print of the bubbles. The children were very excited at the bubble shapes they transferred on to the paper as well as the beautiful colours and patterns made by overlapping prints on top of one another.
It has been wonderful to have JLC students back in the Art Room and the students were excited to be back also and get their hands dirty with some fun art activities. Students have been learning about warm and cool colours and sorting coloured materials into categories. We discovered that some colours, like pink are neither cool or warm and others, such as green can fit into both categories, depending on whether they have more yellow or blue mixed into them. It was interesting hearing the children discuss colours with each other and their reasons for why they thought a colour was warm or cool.
JLC students undertook a contrasting art activity where they coloured the background to look like an ocean in cool colours. On another piece of paper, they drew different styles of fish which they coloured in with warm colours which they then glued onto their background. The final results were quite striking!
The enthusiasm for Art has not waned in MLC students over the course of Remote Learning. They were eagerly awaiting their return to the Art Room to undertake some hands-on activities again. As with the Preps and JLC, MLC students have been undertaking a project based on using warm and cool colours.
For MLC students, this involved a sun and moon design where their paper was divided in two halves, one side representing the sun with warm colours and the other, the moon with cool colours. Students were encouraged to be creative with their designs by including patterns and details that also contrasted with the colours. The students really embraced the design and drawing nature of this project and their final pieces were nothing short of stunning.
MLC students’ current project is single point perspective drawing. This task was modelled significantly as it is a challenging concept to undertake and master. Students were shown how to draw objects, such as buildings and trees, that get smaller as they go into the distance using a vanishing point and horizon line.
As is tradition for graduating Year 6 students, they get to design and decorate their very own brick on the Graduation Wall. This wall is located at the steps on the way down to the Art Room and is a permanent marker of past Year 6 students.
As part of their design, students are required to include their name and graduating year, as well as drawings of things that are important to them. These could be objects, hobbies, sporting equipment, books, symbols, friends names or simply patterns. I have been very impressed with the high levels of engagement and passion from the students for designing their bricks. They really have put their heart and soul into them which make their designs even more powerful and meaningful.
Kind Regards
Miss Carly Wills
Visual Arts Teacher