News from the Art Rooms

Welcome back to the Art Rooms in 2025!

It’s been so wonderful to welcome back all the children into our art rooms and a big warm welcome to our new Prep students who are settling in well. We have so many exciting art projects to be created this year. Looking forward to a colourful year of art!

Senior School Art Room 

In Grade 2 the children have been exploring the colour line and shape used by Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky. The students have been listening to music and thinking about the colours they can imagine, just like Kandinsky did. The students are creating a Kandinsky style collage flower garden, exploring warm and cool colours and the relationship between them. They look fabulous! 

Grade 3 have been looking at Australian artist John Olsen. The students have been imagining being in a rainforest and seeing frogs, similar to what Olsen would do. The students have been using thick and thin lines and light and dark tones to create a dynamic painting. The students are now designing their own frog sculpture using clay. 

Grade 4 children have been exploring the life and artwork of Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak. The students studied the style of how Kenojuak paints owls and other animals, adding magical details to make the work look unique and intriguing. 

In Grade 5 children have been experimenting with paint blotto art. The students explored artists who have used this technique including Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Sandro Botticelli. 

Grade 6 are practicing their sewing and embroidery skills by creating their own soft sculpture. The students have learnt how to sew, embroider and starting and finishing a sewn bird piece. To get inspiration, the students looked at indigenous artists from the Yarrenyty Arltere artists community near Alice Springs. 

Junior School Art Room

The Prep students have settled well into the Art room. They are enthusiastic about art and creating masterpieces. They are learning about the appropriate behaviours and how to use and care for the materials in the art room. We have read many different stories. From the stories we have read, they have become inspirations for the art activities. 

The Preps have worked on activities which have helped them to learn how to draw a 2-dimensional picture. We have also looked at lines, shapes and letters which help create a picture that is not in stick form. The students went off and created a beautiful whole-body self-portrait using a black marker. These were then mounted onto their colourful line drawings. They are stunning. The Preps are now working on another masterpiece. They are using lines and shapes to create housing or buildings using Primary Colours. They will then use watercolour paints to paint over their houses and buildings. I’m so proud of how hard they are working to create these pieces of art. 

In Grade 1 the children have also been working hard. They have been learning about different lines and have been introduced to Larry the Line by Cassie Stephens. Cassie Stephens is an author and an American based Art teacher. Using what they learned, they created a couple of artworks. 

The main attraction being a self-portrait with crazy line hair. They created their masterpieces using different mediums such as oil pastels and watercolour paints. The students began by drawing a self-portrait of themselves. Their facial features were inspired by their amazing personalities. We discussed all the features we need to create a picture of ourselves. The coloured oil pastels were used to create their crazy ‘line’ hair. The students then painted over their crazy hair using watercolour paints. They are such fun!

Happy creating,

Edwina Atkins and Mavra Kotsabouikis