Visual Arts

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:

Danielle Haines (Visual Arts)  danielle.haines@education.vic.gov.au 

An Overview of our Learning

Make your mark with Community Art

There are some exciting things beginning to take shape within our community art group. Starting with a brainstorming session, these students came up with a design for a signpost that will be erected in the school grounds. Students split into small groups, each coming up with ideas before coming together and discussing what would work best for the space. It is exciting to see the idea starting to come together and wanted to share a few tantalising pictures with you. Stay tuned for more in term 3.

Art Show 2023

Some of you may have noticed that students have not been bringing artwork home this year. This is because I am very excited to share that we will be holding an art show in mid October. This is an opportunity for every student to showcase a piece of work and consider how their ideas can be expressed to an audience.

This is also an opportunity to raise funds for our community art projects and we will be running raffles and competitions on the night. We would appreciate donations of items to add to art hampers of art and craft materials to be offered as prizes. Typical items include pencils, paints, brushes, felt pens, canvas, craft goods, colouring books or any other art item you can come up with. These could be purchased from the supermarket, $2 shop or any art supply store. You may even have unopened art supplies at home you wish to donate. 

If you are interested in being a parent helper for this event, I would love to hear from you. There is no art experience required to help out. Jobs will include mounting works for display, set up and pack up of the show, manning raffles etc. 

I look forward to sharing more about this amazing event in term 3.

Foundation students added the finishing touches to their fish designs, cutting out the complex shape before using a variety objects to print patterns and details. We are very excited to see how these will glow in the dark when they are done. 

This week foundation took their paper collage skills to the next level, cutting out letters and decorating them to turn into creative letter monsters. They drew on knowledge from our colour monster project to add expression and details to convey a feeling.

Year 1 and 2 have used a combination of painting techniques and collage to created an alien landscape. Students selected an abstract paper, tearing it to create mountains and caves. They continue to practice cutting very complex shapes to cut the astronaut, rocket and any other details they have chosen before finger painting the final details. 

This week we began exploring sculpture and ways to make paper stand up. Students experimented with curling, fringing and rolling paper, making tabs to glue and attach their pieces. We made fantastical futuristic roads and constructions that pop off the page. 

Over the last two weeks we have begun exploring graffiti, the good, the bad and the in between. Students participated in discussion about what graffiti is and when and if it is ever ok. From spray painting on walls to drawing on tables, everyone agreed that if you don't have permission then it is not ok. Students explored the works of street artists like Banksy and Adam Fujita who try to spread positive messages in their work. With this in mind, students began created their own positive graffiti, deciding on a positive word that describes themselves or might inspire someone. Students use oil pastels to create colour gradients to mimic spray paint before cutting out the final word that can be attached to a wall.

Year 5 and 6 continue to explore kinetic art and the role of the viewer in a piece of work. Most of our Agamographs are now complete and some even had a go at making a Thaumatrope, a spinning disc that gives the illusion of a moving image. This week they have begun exploring flip book animation, combining many images with slight changes to create a moving animation. Using the website flipanim.com we are able to do this digitally. Instructions have been set up in google classroom and I encourage everyone to have a play with it over the holidays. Any animations made can be submitted in google classroom so I can compile them into a short video. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.