Arlington Art
During this time of distance learning, the children have continued to surprise and delight in their ability to stay creative. It’s been fantastic to see them embrace the art activities, express some very thoughtful ideas in our Zoom sessions, and share their creations.
The Peppercorns have been immersed in the world of graphic design. Linking in with their unit of inquiry about equality and rights, they have learnt about the work of Barbara Kruger and Shepard Fairey, two artists who have a strong sense of social justice, and whose work focuses on social commentary. Influenced by these artists, the children designed their own postcard and stickers focusing on an issue they were passionate about. One of the challenges in this work was to use minimal text that worked with a powerful image to communicate their commentary.
The Sunroom have been learning about the art of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. He was a painter from the 1550’s, who is best known for painting imaginative portraits made entirely of fruits, vegetables, flowers etc. The children created their own Arcimboldo inspired portraits using real fruit and vegetables, drawing or collage.
An oil painting, portrait by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
The Sunroom also sought inspiration from the art of Chuck Close, a Photo Realist artist. They used his grid technique to create some of their own drawings. They then extended this idea, and in the style of Surrealist artists, distorted their drawings using different techniques.
The Lofties have been looking at the connections between maths and art and how we can use maths to create art. They looked at the art of Chuck Close and how he uses grids, in order to create some of their own grid drawings. They showed their ability to observe and transfer complex shapes and enlarge the scale very accurately. They also looked at negative and positive space to assist with their drawing skill.
The Lofties delved further into their exploration of maths and art by looking at the work of Paul Klee and learning about shape, in particular, polygons as well as pattern. They created artworks inspired by Klee’s Castle and Sun painting, by constructing three dimensional castles and by drawing up a series of polygons exploring different shape and colour combinations.
The Lighthouse Keepers have been exploring how we can make art that doesn’t have an impact on our natural environment. They used recycled materials to make a sculpture character. They then explored more natural materials in order to create a weaving.
The children continued to look at nature as inspiration and as a resource for their art creations, discovering how pigments can come from plants and flowers. They got busy with hammers and pounded their collected flowers and leaves to create some wonderful prints. Colours were discovered at home in other natural materials, mostly in the kitchen as they mixed up their own natural paint.
The children were inspired by the art of Raku Inoue and collected natural materials to create their own insect portrait. They focused on shape, overlapping, layering and proportion. We looked at what we can do with used paper and learnt how to create recycled handmade paper.
Debrah Brinkworth
Art teacher