Art

 Art Room News

Prep 

Our prep students modelled with earthenware clay as part of their book week activity. The chosen book was 'Dawn' by Marc Martin, which showed many animals and the beauty of nature as the world awakens to a new day. One animal included in the book was an owl, which we proceeded to make from clay. 

Students explored the capabilities of clay through making it into a sphere, a pancake, a sausage, stretching it, smelling it, noting its texture and deciding whether it was cold or warm. They used a rolling pin to roll it into a slab, and then traced around a circle template. They folded in sides of the circle for the owl wings and head. Students used a texta lid to imprint feathers and eyes. The clay air-dried for a couple of weeks and then was bisque fired in our kiln. Students enjoyed glazing their owl, and decided whether they wanted to make their owl shiny or not by adding a gloss glaze over the top. The owls went into the kiln for the second firing.

Prep students also explored weaving within the art area of threads and textiles. They each had a small piece of hessian textile and looked at how it was made. Could they see a weaving pattern? How would they describe the texture of hessian? What did they observe about the edges of hessian? What happened if they pulled threads out along the edges? What happened if they pulled some threads out in the middle coloums and rows? Could they make a new pattern? The students enjoyed seeing what happened to their piece after pulling on different threads, and noted if they pulled all the threads out there was no more hessian!! They also looked at roving wool fibres and then at felt textiles, and again observed the texture and whether felt could fray in a similar way to hessian.

We explored the process of weaving - up, down, up, down, or over, under, over under - on a mini chicken-wire loom. Students used wool, wall paper strips, ribbon twirling strips, plastic strips and pipe cleaners to weave onto their loom. They had to keep their weaving horizontal so it neatly filled out their whole loom. They noted that using thinner strips took a lot longer to fill out their loom than using some thicker strips.

Once the owls had come out of the kiln from the second firing, they were attached to the front of the looms and are now displayed in the front office.

Grade 1 & 2 

Students looked at the book week book 'A Farm by the Sea', by Jillian Packer. The story is based on the farm/sea life in South Australia's Port Lincoln. On the farm are some chickens. Students used clay to model their own chickens. They used rolling pins to make a slab and cut a shape that they could make into a cone. This was the basis of their chook. They added wings, eyes, a beak, a wattle (under their beak), a comb (on top of their head), and any other bits they chose to. Students had to join any additional clay pieces using the 'scratch scratch, slip slip, smoosh, smear' technique to ensure their joined pieces didn't fall off. Once finished, the clay chooks were airdried and then bisque fired in our kiln.

After the first firing, students glazed their chooks. They decided if any or all parts of their chook were to be shiny by adding gloss glaze over their work. The clay chooks were then fired a second time.

While waiting for their clay to dry, students explored modelling with wire. They were going to make a wire model dragonfly. They had a long piece of wire and bent it to make four long and thin wings, a head and a body for their dragonfly. The students found that it was a bit tricky to get the wings to be symmetrical!

They used pva glue to gently apply tissue paper neatly around their wings. This work will continue next term with the additon of applying a sparkly gloss transparent glue over their wings, adding a body from magiclay, and painting a background for their dragonfly.

Grade 3 & 4

Students used the book week book, 'The Frog's First Song, written by Jazz Money, as inspiration to sew a felt frog. They were reminded of the words 'thread' and 'textile'. They learned to attach a paper template to their felt with pins, cut out their felt templates, thread needles, tie knots, and sew a running stitch around their felt pieces. They stuffed their frog and glued on felt eyes and decorations. 

Grade 5 & 6

Students looked at the artworks of contemporary artist, Pete Cromer, who is inspired to make his bold artworks based on the optimistic personalities and vibrant traits of people and wildlife. Living in Colac in Victoria, he paints textured pieces and collages them together to represent many different animals.

Some of Pete Cromer's artworks:

Students coloured in a colouring sheet from Pete Cromer. They then traced the shapes in colour groups onto tracing paper, and numbered their shapes on both the colouring page and tracing paper. Next, students painted the tracing paper shapes according to their colour groupings. They only received the primary colours and white paint and needed to mix their own hues and nuances of colour. they were encouraged to leave brush strokes and make variations in their paint, as evidenced in Pete's work.

Once dried, students cut out their shapes and collaged them together. They used their number references to help them collage their pieces according to their colouring sheet. This project will be fully finished early next term.

Peace Posters

This year, Warrandyte Uniting Church is celebrating 20 years of the River Flow Peace Vision. To mark the occasion, they are hosting a community celebration called “Together as One”, along with a student poster competition.

All students at ACPS completed a 'River Flow Peace' Poster. It is always a great thing to discuss peace and how we can live, work and play together harmoniously. Students were encouraged to represent peace in a way that was meaningful, such as doves, friends or the world joined together in some way. They could use paint, pencils, fabric, modelling clay, sequins and a range of other items. 

These posters will be dislayed and judged - with prizes! First prize for kinder and prep is an art pack worth $50, for grades 1/2  it is $50 cash, for 3/4 it is $100 cash and for grades 5/6 it is $200 cash. Judging will happen in early October and the artworks will be displayed in October on the 23rd - 25th. More details to come on where and when they will be displayed.

Warm regards, 

Julie Clarke 🎨