Art News

This term has certainly been a busy but short one! The Art Room has, as always, been a hive of colourful activity and there have been some sensational creations from Foundation to Year 6 throughout the term which I’m excited to share with you!

Here is outline of just some of the activities the students embarked on this term.  Counting down from 6 to Foundation…

The Year 6 students began the year by creating their own personal tie dye flag that brighten the Art Room and will hang there all year to celebrate their final year of primary school.  They have also spent several lessons learning about an American artist called Wayne Thiebaud. At the age of 16 he started working for Walt Disney and a short time afterwards he went on to draw and paint cakes, milkshakes and ice–creams. It became his main speciality topic. Inspired by these, I hope you will agree, the Year 6 students, did a great job using oil pastels and the use of white and contrasting colours to make their desserts ‘pop’ out of the paper and appear 3 dimensional! So many of them looked good enough to eat!! Most recently they Year 6 have been designing and constructing using recycled materials to make an imaginary creature or robot. 

The Year 5 students started the year by learning about the abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky and went onto create some colourful Kandinsky inspired abstract art works. They focussed on line, shape and colour. They then moved onto produce some fantastic Antarctic landscape scenes and added detailed drawings of some Antarctic dwelling creatures in keeping with their integrated topic in class.  In the construction unit of work plans have been made for work that which will be carried out at the start of Term 2. Small cardboard packaging boxes have been kindly brought in- please keep them coming- they will be very useful indeed when they start turning their designs into reality. 

The Year 4s have been working on concentric circles, oil pastels and effectively creating a whole year level display which really is an eye-catching kaleidoscope of colour. In the latter half of the term the students have been working on paper construction of cones and then progressed to working either in pairs or individually in creating a 3D paper city with great results. They look great!

The Year 3s have looked and reflected on some of the art by Vincent Van Gogh. Over a 2-week period each class worked collaboratively to produce their own oil pastel version of ‘Sunflowers’ inspired Van Gogh’s famous painting. They look amazing. Two are displayed are currently on two of the Art Room windows (3-12 and 3-21) and the other two are in their classrooms. (3-11) and (3-22).  Most Recently they looked at the Dr Seuss illustrations in his book The Lorax and went on to make some great 3D models of The Lorax.

The Year 2 students explored making rubbings using nature   to create a textured background for their art work. They had to draw a person or animal in motion to add to their background. They also did some wax resist painting of a spider’s web and added to the web with a detailed picture of a spider. These looked amazing! In a painting unit of work the students have been creatively printing using warm and cool colours. In the construction unit of work, they have also looked at the Lorax by Dr Seuss and went onto make models of Truffala Trees. 

The Year 1 students began the term by creating some terrific paper monsters, many of which adorn the library window near the main office and the Art Room walls. Then the students looked at some of the art works by Claude Monet. They learnt how artists often complete their work in steps and wait for their work to dry in between. They looked at the impressionist style of painting was often using short brushstrokes or dabs of paint rather than long brush strokes.  Inspired by his paintings of the Japanese bridge and waterlilies the students  went onto to produce their own two step painting of the bridge and waterlilies  with outstanding results. In the construction unit of work the year 1 students created their own paper 3D creature that looked fantastic!

The Foundation students have had some drawing tasks to do and are now moving on to exploring colours and paint. They are mastering putting their art smocks on quickly, applying paint with a brush and tidying up at the end of their Art lesson. They focussed on primary colours and went onto mixing paint to create secondary colours. In their construction unit of work, they made colourful paper cylinders and secured them to paper by cutting tabs. They have explored different ways of using paper in construction including twisting, bending, folding and rolling. Most recently they have also been developing their cutting and gluing skills by creating their wonderful paper snail garden. 

Thank you so much to those families that regularly send in newspaper and small boxes (no bigger than a cereal box). They are always much appreciated. Paper towel cardboard rolls (not toilet rolls) are also needed as my store of those needs replenishing after a busy few weeks with children constructing models. 

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