Visual Arts

can Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2025, and welcome your input:

Danielle Haines (Visual Arts)  danielle.haines@education.vic.gov.au 

Foundation students have been learning all about different colours that we associate with feelings in the art world. We explored the world of the colour monster, who shows all his emotions through the colour of his fur. Students each drew their own colour monster and decided how he was feeling. There were lots of calm and loved monsters in foundation, along with all sorts of other emotions.

Year One and Two students made artwork inspired by the artist Franz Marc, who was famous for painting blue horses in the early 20th century. We read the story 'The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse', by Eric Carl who depicted animals in all sorts of crazy colours. We discussed how we have the freedom in art to create things that don't always have to be accurate to real life, and how we all create art a little differently to each other, even when we are all making the same thing. 

This week there has been a buzz about the art room as they began to create their own treasure maps. After painting a piece of paper with a coffee mixture to make it look old, students began to think about the sorts of things that make an adventure for the treasure seeker. They have been drawing sea monsters and volcanos, mermaids and mountains to get to the buried treasure. 

Year Three and Four have been busy with all sorts of projects over the last few weeks. They have been learning about different ways we can divide up the colour wheel to help us choose colour schemes in our work. Students drew their own tree and then used warm or cool colours with soft pastels to make it pop. They created contrast by using the opposite cool or warm in the background, creating an amazing contrasting landscape. Some students were able to continue to explore contrast, by drawing an underwater scene, highlighting a small area with colour to make it pop.

This week we had fun with food dye. It got messy in the art room as students made their own paint brushes from sticks and leaves and made scratchy marks on the page to simulate a bird scratching on the ground. They will use these backgrounds for a drawing project in the coming weeks.

Year Five and Six students are all about the elements of art. They explored value, by using soft pastels to create an out of this world space drawing, using shading techniques to make their planets look like they have dimension. This week, they began working on a radial colour wheel to further develop their understanding of the element of colour. They are using acrylic paint to mix secondary and tertiary colours within their own unique design.