Art

Specialist teachers: (from right to left) PE with Natarsha Kenny, Performing Arts with Sarah Bailey, S.T.E.A.M with Kate Misra, and Visual Art with Julie Clarke.

In the art room...

We have been creating some fun things in the art room. All students have now finished their self portraits. 

- Preps learned about outline and background when they drew a whole picture of themselves. They learned about their body and discovered things like how wide their neck is,  how long their arms are, and where half-way is on them. After drawing their outline, they used food dye to carefully paint around themselves.

-Grade 1 and 2 students modelled their faces and upper body with plasticine. They had to roll some plasticine in their hands to warm it up to make it more malleable. They squashed it onto their card and used their thumbs with force to spread the plasticine out to make an oval head shape. Students made shapes, such as a sphere, and then squashed them flat like a pancake. They pinched the sides of this 'pancake' slightly to make them oval shape, and this became part of their eyes. Students rolled plasticine to make small coils which went around their eyes. Their noses were made from a cone shape. A lot of fine motor skills were used here!

- Grade 3 and 4 students used paper to collage their face. They made it 3D and had a lot of fun making their collage represent themselves.

-Grade 5 and 6 students drew and painted their self-portrait on vintage paper, using just a greylead, white paint and 'skin colour' paint. We talked about skin-colour being a variety of colours and that there wasn't just 'one' skin-colour - but many such colours to reflect the variety of different skin-colours in our world. For our purposes, the 'skin-colour' matched for the most part with the colour of the vintage paper, although students' could have added more dark or light tints to their skin-colour paint if desired to reflect themselves more accurately. 

Our next art projects will be a whole-school themed artwork to adorn the art room walls  - an 'under the sea' theme. Grade 5 and 6 students are drawing some fabulous octopus including the suckers on the underside of their eight arms. Here is an early picture showing some of the students at work.

Grades 3 and 4 are painting fish, and are learning about tearing newspaper in the process. They've discovered it is hard quite to tear newspaper the way you want it to go, and that one side tears much more neatly than the other side. They are using their torn newspaper to make a negative template with which to paint their fish. They are learning about value, with the tints (lighter) and shades (darker) of colours to reflect the top of the fish that has more light on it from the sun, and the underbelly of the fish that is typically darker.

Grades 1 and 2 will draw some turtles with a focus on shape and pattern.

Preps have been exploring and mixing primary colours to make secondary colours. They know already from experience with their practise piece that if you mix blue, yellow and red you get brown - and if you get brown, you can't undo it back into the 3 primary colours again! With their white seahorse paper they were very careful not to mix too much so individual colours could be seen. We are looking at the author and illustrator Eric Carle and his Mr Seahorse book for inspiration and ideas.

Art Smocks

Thank you to those students who have already brought in their named art smocks. Some students still need to bring theirs in - please can they bring their art smock to art as soon as possible to protect their uniforms. Many thanks!

Warrandyte Pottery Expo

The Warrandyte Pottery Expo will be held on the banks of the Yarra in Warrandyte this weekend, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th February, from 10am - 5pm. There will be children's clay activities throughout the weekend. This is always a fun expo if you can get along to it and great exposure for our students to the world of pottery and ceramics.

Warrandyte Festival Street Parade - helpers wanted!

The fabulous Warrandyte Festival Street Parade will take place once again in 2024. The Street Parade will be autumnal this year and held on Saturday 20th April. Please save the date so students' and their families can represent our ACPS and walk together in the parade. 

The theme this year is 'river creatures'.  I invite parents, grandparents and/or carers who would like to be involved in creating our school's response for the parade to be in touch with me, either via email: julie.botham-clarke@education.vic.gov.au or in person. Feel free to touch base with me next Tuesday after school at the 'BBQ and Meet the Teacher' afternoon on the oval.  We will also be asking our students in the Junior School Council to be involved in preparing for the Festival Street Parade.

Wishing you and your families a lovely weekend.

Julie Clarke

Visual Art