Arlington Art
During this time of distance learning we’ve tried to stay creative without relying on too many art materials. It’s been fantastic to watch the children embrace these activities and share some wonderful creations.
Artwork Take Two:
The Peppercorns and The Sunroom were asked to search some online galleries to choose and recreate an artwork using three dimensional objects. They could use whatever they could easily lay their hands on. This activity focused on looking at and learning about artworks, particularly composition. The children had to consider what was achievable when choosing their artwork. Their creations are testimony to their ability to be creative with what resources they had available. I started the ball rolling with a Zoom session as Del Kathryn Barton, a la Deb doughnut head.
The Peppercorns have been pondering the question, ‘What’s on your mind?’. This activity asked the children to think about what they’ve been thinking about! Some ideas were about the feelings they may be having at the moment or the things they are missing or enjoying. They were asked to express these ideas as images or abstract shapes, lines and colours.
The Sunroom responded to, ‘My Hand of Imagination’ - five things my fingers could become whenever I wanted them to. They came up with some useful, intriguing and sometimes funny solutions. This activity focused on creative thinking, problem solving, imagination and simple drawing.
The Lofties have been immersed in the world of Hundertwasser, an eccentric artist and architect from Austria. Hundertwasser loved organic shapes and vibrant colours and broke many of the stereotypical rules of architecture with odd shaped windows and trees growing from inside buildings. We noticed that our building for Art and French at Preshil is very Hundertwasser with the tree growing through the deck. The children built block cities and then created an observational drawing of their sculpture and finally added colour. This activity allows the children to experience the process of creating and understanding that there are many different ways that artists can generate artworks. Some children were so inspired that they then had a go at doing the reverse and drew a city from their imagination and then created a three dimensional block sculpture based on their drawing. The children experienced being artists and architects and honed their drawing and sculpture skills.
The Lofties have also been exploring warm and cool colours in nature and honing their colour perception, observation and classification skills by matching the colours of nature with paints or pencils. They’ll be well equipped to accompany you on your next trip to Bunnings to match some paints. They also created an artwork using their nature collection.
The Lighthouse Keepers have continued to explore colour and shape and have made some beautiful colourful mobiles inspired by the artwork of Kandinsky.
They’ve also been exploring and classifying warm and cool colours and investigating where they can find them in nature.
Everyone in the school community has been working on creating God’s Eyes or Ojo de Dios in Spanish. This activity was originally designed as an exercise in colour and weaving for the Lighthouse, but it became infectious and other children wanted to join in. We are now endeavouring to get each child and staff member at Arlington to create a God’s Eye to contribute to an installation including all of them as a symbol of our time apart and the coming back together as a community. Each person has been asked to include something they are grateful for as part of the installation. It will also serve as a reminder of this extraordinary and unusual time we have experienced.
Debrah Brinkworth
Art teacher