Visual Art News

This week in Visual Art has been another fun one. 

Senior students have developed such a lot of skills in observational drawing, it takes a few weeks now, to complete their self-portraits to their own satisfaction. They are hard task masters when it comes to their own efforts but their self-confidence is growing and they understand that a growth mindset requires repeated application of effort, especially in Art. I truly value every student’s efforts in the Art room but this time I really do have to single out one exceptional portrait artist. Have a look at Olive Sawyer’s remarkable piece. I framed this and placed it at the front of the room and every subsequent class of students who came into the Art room exclaimed “Oh WOW!! That’s Olive!!”. Olive won a significant community portrait prize a couple of years ago, competing against students much older than herself and she’s showing us exactly why! Clapping hands emoji Olive! 

We continued our study of observational drawing with lots of rusty garden ornaments to draw. Students really demonstrated that they’ve been listening and practising very hard, especially with shading techniques using smudge sticks and kneadable erasers. Students especially love the kneadable erasers which feel a lot like BluTack but are a bit different. These fabulous erasers remove some of the graphite from a shaded work and create light on a sketch, where it is needed, to highlight the form we are drawing. Kneadable erasers are readily available at art supply shops, but you can even get one for $2 from larger Kmart stores at the moment. 

Willow really loved drawing Mr. Rabbit and showed iron focus to create this amazing piece. Giddy up Willow!!! So many other students amazed themselves with incredible pieces and literally every single student in the Art room really worked super hard trying their very best to improve their observational drawing. It was a thrill to see the excitement and dedication demonstrated.

Next week we will continue our observational drawing journey with a focus on fruit and vegetable still life. Mrs. Tulloch has told students all 250+ children will be drawing a zucchini from her garden and they MUST TAKE IT HOME WITH THEM! #zucchiniseasonHELP!