News from Visual Art

Last term Prep and JLC students learnt about sculpture and drawing. We talked about what a sculpture is and how they are 3-dimensional. 3-dimensional objects have height, width and depth and they are not flat like a drawing or painting. You can walk around a sculpture and/or view it from different angles. 

Prep students drew rainbow shapes of various sizes on thin card and coloured them using oil pastel. The children were tasked with trying hard to ensure that none of the card could be seen through the oil pastel and that their colouring was neat and not scribbly. Following this the children cut out the rainbow shapes and punched holes in them in order to hang them in the form of a mobile.

JLC students followed a similar process to the Preps, however, they were required to draw circles of different sizes and decorate them brightly with drawings and patterns. Once the students had cut them out, they cut small slots around the sides in order to slot them together to build and create a 3-dimensional sculpture.

Following this activity, both classes looked at a painting by Salvador Dali, called The Persistence of Memory, where clocks appear to be melted and draped over the landscape like pieces of fabric. Often Dali’s works were created from images in his dreams and were surreal in nature, with a touch of the ridiculous. We talked about how Dali made everyday objects appear ridiculous by altering something about their appearance and how this idea was going to inspire our next artwork. 

The children were guided to draw a bird which had ridiculously long legs inspired by Dali. After drawing them with black marker, the children were able to colour and decorate their bird any way they liked. The background was then painted in either warm or cool gradient colours. 

Students in Years 3-6 have been working on creating sculptures of animals of their choice. To begin, we discussed what a sculpture was and the different techniques and processes that could be used to produce a 3-dimensional artwork. This also included materials used, creating strength and integrity within the structure, design elements, problem solving, finishing touches and evaluation and reflection of their own and the artworks of others. 

Students sketched their design in their sketchbooks and labelled structural features and how they were going to create them. They also listed materials needed and were required to articulate how they were going to make their sculpture from start to finish.

The children used recycled materials to create the armature or skeleton of their sculpture and Modroc plaster impregnated strips cut to size, to cover their armature. It was interesting to see the different ways that students used rolled up newspaper, masking tape, straws, icy-pole sticks, plastic bottles and cardboard boxes to create the basis for their animals. Some of the challenges were determining how to get their animal to stand upright or how to create a strong armature. Once these problems were overcome, students were able to get down to the fun and messy part of modrocking! Once the armature was completely covered with Modroc and dried, students were able to paint their sculpture and add other elements and materials to complete their animals. These amazing sculptures will be on display at the Art Show in Term 4. 

Next students learnt about felting, the process of creating felt fabric by matting together wool fibres. The Year 3 and 4 students undertook the process of wet felting and the Year 5 and 6 students tried their hand at dry felting.

Miss Carly Wills

Visual Arts Teacher