Visual Arts

Foundation/1

The Foundation students have had a fantastic start this year in Visual Arts. It's been sensational to see the Grade One students consistently demonstrate the value of care and responsibility, by being exceptional role models to our new Foundation students; assisting them with learning the art room routines and protocols. 

For their first session, students explored lines to create a patterned piece. They learnt different lines and practised naming them in Spanish. The students' artworks have been displayed at the front of the performing arts room.

This week students explored primary and secondary colours, through colour mixing. They got messy and had lots of fun rotating through various stations, which included mixing coloured shaving cream; mixing paint; blending coloured pencils; and glueing tissue paper together in order to make secondary colours. Students learnt the names of the primary colours (colores primarios) such as yellow (amarillo), blue (azul) and red (rojo). They then built on this knowledge by making secondary colours and having a go at saying these in Spanish; purple (morado), orange (naranja) and green (verde).   

Here are some photos of the F/1's busily working in Art 

Grade 2/3

Grade 2/3 students have had a wonderful start in Visual Arts this year, creating name labels using posca markers. These labels demonstrate students' understanding of the Art Room Agreements which were created in conjunction with them.  They were given the freedom to explore their own creativity and present their name in any way they'd like. Students were encouraged to include their interests in their artwork to express themselves. They then had the opportunity to select where they will display their artwork, ultimately the Grade 2/3's decided on the middle wall of the art room. These pieces will be displayed throughout the year along with the Art Room Agreements.

This week students have begun a unit of work based on constructing three-dimensional birds. Students have been using the Birds of the Amazon and the artwork of artist, Barbara Kobylinska as inspiration. For this unit, students will eventually construct a 3D model of a bird. Currently, students have been designing their plans using coloured pencils and fine liners. The focus of this lesson was to learn and revise various pencil colouring techniques, such as: hatching, cross-hatching, scumbling, blending, shading, solid colouring and directional colouring. 

Here are some examples of the birds that students drew as part of the unit:

Grades 4/5/6

The Grades 4/5/6 have also been directly involved in creating the Art Room Agreements, they  brainstormed different expected behaviours for the art room to ensure that 'everyone has the right to do as much work as possible and everyone feels safe and comfortable.' We discussed how NPS values of 'care, curiosity, responsibility and creativity' can be reflected within this document. After this lesson, students were required to demonstrate their understanding of the agreements by creating a graffiti name label.

For this mini-unit, students were exposed to various examples of graffiti art, as a class we discussed the difference between street art and graffiti. Students have been briefly exposed to various iconic examples of street art throughout Melbourne, as well as the artwork of Bansky and Mulga the Artist. After this, students selected a preferred font to create a graffiti label. They had the freedom to choose their nickname, initials or name. We discussed various design elements such as lines, patterns and fonts, to enhance the appearance of their artwork.

These magnificent pieces have been displayed at the front of the art room: