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| Talia's 'Candy Swane' |
The imagination of my students is always a delight and an inspiration! Well done everyone!
"Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2" Animal Morphs in Watercolour Pencil
The imagination of my students is always a delight and an inspiration! Well done everyone!
Rock Pool Collages
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| Talia D |
Our rock pools are created with brown paper rocks (with sponged paint for texture) and a variety of rock-pool creatures drawn with black marker on polka dot stickers, cut out and collaged in layers onto coloured paper.
Cool Clay Snowmen for a Hot Aussie Christmas!
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| Olivia D.W. |
It may be hot and humid, and the summer storms are kicking in each afternoon, but it's only 5 weeks until Christmas, and it's lovely to dream! If we can't have a White Christmas and build real snowmen, then building them from clay has got to be the next best thing!
We've built our clay snowman sculptures using a basic pinch-pot base and added lovely scarves, hats of various descriptions, and of course long carroty noses.
Everyone must have been paying attention because all of the hats and noses stayed on! Loads of fun, and they turned out beautifully.
Scratch - Art Action Animals
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| Toby E |
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| Hannah Y |
Scratch-Art Action Animals - We loved this!! Although some of the kids had doubts when it came to covering their entire picture with black oil pastel, it was a real 'wow!' moment as we scratched it away to reveal the picture beneath!
'Action Animals' are drawn with thick black marker on 120gsm paper, using large flat shapes and little or no detail. Then the entire page is coloured heavily with crayon or oil pastel, taking care to leave no white areas, and using light bright colours that contrast well with the black. I also encourage students to use multiple colours in each flat area. Then a coat of solid black goes over everything.
The black is scratched away, revealing the colours and line drawing beneath.
Adapted from this lesson at Art Projects for Kids :)
Amazing Idea Machines Inspired by Souther Salazar
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| Abbey's Idea Machine |
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| Talia's Idea Machine |
For me, the best thing about blogging is the ideas so generously shared. I found this Souther Salazar inspired idea at shine brite zamorano...
We watched this time-lapse Youtube video of the artist creating his installation 'Alejandro's Idea Machine'. It finishes with a pan around some of the marvellous detail in the piece.
We also looked at some of his drawings, again noting the detail and free-flowing line work, before completing our own Idea Machine drawings using black marker and white chinagraph pencil on coloured paper.
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| Souther Salazar: Alejandro and the Idea Machine |
Coral Reef Fish ~ Version 2
Here's another version of our Great Barrier Reef pictures inspired by Sandra Silberzweig. This time we used fluoro oil pastels and fluoro paints to create a water-colour resist coral reef background. We finished with fish cut from black paper, cutting out shapes inside the fish to allow the background colour and pattern to show through.
Mysterious Mansions in Silhouette
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Although this is NOT a 'Halloween' picture, some of the children chose to include ghosts, bats and other 'spooky' images into their drawings.
The walls of our buildings were then coloured with solid black marker to create a silhouette, and we finished with yellow colour-stick in the windows for extra atmosphere and glow.
I love the contrast between the bright watercolour, detailed line drawing and the solid black of the silhouetted buildings. This project was heavily influenced by a great lesson I saw over at Mrs Picasso's Art Room - we had lots of fun with it :)
Silberzweig Inspired Reef Fish
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| Tasman S |
Living on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, we have a number of coral reef islands on our door step. When I saw 'Sapphire Coral Fish' by Canadian artist Sandra Silberzweig, I knew that this would be a beautiful inspiration for a reef-themed picture. We started with a discussion about Sandra's use of bright colours, black outlines and pattern.
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| Molly B |
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| Luka M |
We created our own Reef Fish pictures using cut paper, fluoro paint and oil pastel. This project was such a lot of fun to do, and they are all beautiful!
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| 'Sapphire Coral Fish' - Sandra Silberzweig. |
Clay Snowmen ....
Pottery - Our favourite lesson of the term! This week we've made clay snowmen. A bit early for Christmas, but by the time I get them dried, fired and back to the schools for painting it will be close to the end of term.
We started with a pinch pot base, then joined on a solid head and added coil scarf, hat and nose before using a skewer to add facial features.
The last step was the brain surgery, necessary to allow air into the solid head for even drying.
A great project for practising our score and slip joining.... it will be interesting to see how many come back from the firing with all the bits still in place :)
Smurfs 'n' Snails.... Viewfinder Movies in Soft Pastel
We used viewfinders to select individual compositions from promotional photos of the Smurfs 2 and Turbo movies, and finished with soft pastel.The tricky part was enlarging the viewfinder selection to fill our whole page! Thanks Ruby and Oscar for sharing your work :)
Celebrating Spring! ~ Paddy Art #6
Folk Art Flower Collage - Watercolour paper painted by residents with dripped and squirted paint and printed with bubble-wrap. I cut out flower shapes and vases, which the residents assembled (with varying degrees of assistance) to create their masterpieces. We finished them off with some glitter glue. Every one turned out beautifully!
Watercolour Flowers - Still celebrating Spring! I drew some flowers free-style on watercolour paper. Residents painted with food dye and then sprinkled with salt. They loved the colours, and marvelled over the salt effect.
While we're enjoying the school holidays, life in Pademelon continues unchanged for the residents. One of the highlights each week is our Friday Art Group - a chance to create together, a chance to admire our own and each other's creations, a chance to share a laugh :)
Even though I carefully choose no-fail projects, and for many there is a great deal of assistance every step of the way, there is always a sense of wonder and magic when we hold up the finished pictures. The heart felt comments of 'I didn't think I could do that!' and 'It's beautiful!' make the effort so worth while!
"Sing Wild Songs of Adventure..." Paddy Art #5
If you've been following you'll know that I've been leading a weekly art group at Pademelon, a home for people with advanced dementia.
We have the most wonderful DT (Diversional Therapist) Sally, who forever goes above and beyond to keep life interesting and exciting for the residents. From high teas in the garden and daily music concerts to fish tanks and bird houses, she is always full of ideas and plans to add joy to the day, and she makes it happen! Because she does so much for my Mum, I would do anything for her! So when she approached me to lead a weekly art group I was delighted to lend a hand.
One idea we discussed early on was a collaborative Tree of Life.Our idea is to hang it in the living room and to have the residents glue on self-adhesive gems, with each new resident adding their gem as part of a 'welcome' to their new home. So while I wanted the residents to be as involved as possible in the creation, I also wanted the finished product to be something that would be a lovely and permanent addition to the room where they spend so much of their time! This is our final effort....
We started with 9 X 20" canvases which I pre-painted with a wash of Atelier Red-Gold Interactive acrylic. Residents Ken, Rae and Dorothy helped me to spatter paint Jackson Pollock-style all over the background. We used squeeze bottles of watered acrylic in cerulean blue, red-gold (same paint but stronger concentration) and metallic gold. I flattened cardboard packing boxes to shield our feet from the spatters. Lots (and lots!) of paint flying everywhere and loads of fun!
I then took the canvases home and painted the negative space background in cream house paint, which gave good coverage but left the texture of the dried spatter paint. The tree shape stands out beautifully!
Meanwhile, I drew up some birds and dragonflies onto thick watercolour paper which Dorothy, Maureen, Neen, Elis and Nancy painted in cerulean blue. I embellished them with gold and red detail, cut them out and mod-podged them onto the background.
I also added some inspirational words (found on the Pinterest, where else??)
Sing wild songs of adventure...Dance lightly with life...Laugh for no reason...Love beyond words...
A bit kitsch I know, but it pretty well sums up what I want for my Mum at this stage in her life.
We refined the gem idea to include a gold leaf for each resident, with their name and birth date.
Here is my gorgeous Mum adding her leaf to the tree, with help from my sister Leanne.
Although I have come to prefer smaller individual projects which give the residents immediate results, as an on-going 'living' work, I'm pretty pleased with this one :)
Go here to see more Paddy Projects.
Articulated Scarecrows ...
Our Scarecrows this week are in anticipation of the Mary Valley Scarecrow Festival which starts this weekend - it makes a lovely family afternoon drive into the Hinterland to see the clever and often humorous creations!
Created with cardboard and wax crayons, these are really lots of fun.
We started with a basic body template, to which the kids added their scarecrow's head, hands, feet, tatty clothing etc.
I drew the template in pencil before scanning it so that the resulting line is a light grey colour - subtle enough for the kids to change easily as they add their scarecrow's features.
We added strong colour with wax crayon, cut them out and pinned them together at the joints.
The final step is to glue them to the background, applying glue only to the head and torso so that the arms and legs can still move freely.
How Much Can A Koala Bear?
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Students had a completely free range with colour - some went with natural greys, browns and black while others really lashed out! Thanks to Emma and Estelle for sharing their very individual Koala pictures here!
We used the same broken line technique to apply colour to the background, referring to the colour wheel to select colours that we knew would blend well together. Finally we brushed over all our line work with fine brushes and clean water. We were careful to apply our brushwork in the same direction that we drew our lines to dissolve the colour into watercolour while retaining the line work which gives the koala his furry appearance.
Rainbow Lorikeets
We have uninvited but welcome guests who visit us each morning around breakfast time.... They're a bit noisy, and they can be a bit messy (!) but they don't overstay their welcome, and I love seeing them :)
We've created Rainbow Lorikeet pictures using neon oil pastels on black paper. After a bit of experimenting and practice we start by drawing our birds in black oil pastel on black paper, then filling them in with white oil pastel, trying not to go over the black lines. We then create a border design with white lines, going over them to make sure they are firmly drawn.
The best part is adding colour with the neon pastels - they really have the 'wow' factor, and the kids love using them!
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| One of my visitors this morning |
Not-So-Grumpy Cats - Fired and Finished!
These cute sculptures started out as Grumpy Cats, but nearly everyone took off the frown because they're so much nicer this way :)
Bisque fired and painted with acrylic house paint - we love the bright colours!!
Putting on the finishing touches....
Extended Drawings
I've done variations of extended drawing a few of times in years past with my classes, and when I saw this post by the ever-wonderful Kathy at Art Projects for Kids, I couldn't resist doing it again. What interested me was the way Kathy has used this activity to encourage students to work with careful detail by showing them 'Super Speedy' and 'Super Detailed' examples of the same sheet.
When I showed similar examples to my classes the contrast between the two drew lots of 'oohs and aahs' from the kids, and they were really inspired to work with focus. I think I can safely say that you could have heard a pin drop as they worked on their own pictures!
Kathy has created free templates for her extended drawing project, but I only had a half lesson available, so I needed a sheet with fewer photos. I followed the link I found in the comments of Kathy's post to these great animal photographs on white backgrounds - it certainly saved a lot of time hunting through magazines, or editing photos myself!
We used plain old black biro to create detailed environments for the animals, and the results are fantastic. It really gave those students who love precise, detailed work an opportunity to shine!!
Fun At the Ekka!
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For some it is an amazing yearly fun fair, for others something to be avoided at all costs - whatever your opinion it has all the elements that kids love, especially the wild rides!
We started with a self portrait in black and white using thick and thin black markers. I encouraged the kids to think about facial expression to convey feeling, and to use a variety of line to create texture. Another topic of discussion was the use of diagonal line to convey liveliness and movement. I also encouraged them to draw directly with black markers, and I am really enjoying the spontaneous line work of their drawings, and the expressions on the faces!
We then used metallic markers to create a colourful background on black paper (the photos here do not do justice to the colours of the metallic markers!) We were especially trying to convey a sense of excitement and fun.
This has been one of our most effective pictures this term - I love the contrast of the black & white portraits against the explosively colourful backgrounds!
A Sunday Drive ....
We began by looking at some paintings by folk artist Jeanette Carlstrom, including 'House on the Hills' and (my favourite) 'Cats on a Stroll', especially noticing her use of colour, pattern and repetition. We also had some discussion about what we might see on a Sunday drive around our local area - including The Big Pineapple, strawberry farms, the ocean from the coast road (including dolphins, whales etc as this is whale migration season), Australia Zoo, the Ettamogah Pub and a host of other local landmarks.
We began by building a series of layered hills from the bottom of the page up. Over the hills we drew a winding road through the countryside that we filled with repetitive patterns.
After retracing all our lines in black marker we coloured all the solid shapes with wax crayon before painting the entire picture with watercolour.
I found it easiest with this particular project to set up a paint station for each colour, with the kids moving freely from colour to colour. This keeps the colours clean and makes cleaning up a breeze!
Thanks Amy at Artful Artsy Amy for her inspirational lesson idea :)
This painting was a lot of fun, and the students all did a fabulous job!
Folksy Birds - Paddy Art #4
Sally (our Pademelon Diversional Therapist) had a lot of old stamps and suggested that we might be able to use them in our art group.
I drew up some basic shape folk-art style birds on a couple of canvases, and the residents collaged the stamps all over them. This was actually quite a good sensory activity as they ended up with glue on their fingers which they rolled off by rubbing their fingers together.
Then it was a simple job for me to then paint in the background with off-white (although it appears quite grey in these photos), and add a black-glue outline to make the images 'pop'. I love the white-on-white texture that the painted-over stamps create around the edges of the birds.
I'm quite enjoying our collaborative projects - everyone can be involved to some extent... Some are very hands on, while for others it's an opportunity to sit around the table and enjoy the social atmosphere. Either way it's a way to create a moment of fun and meaningful interaction (and every one of those is so precious!)
Thanks Moonflitter Musing and Eva Crawford on Redbubble for your creations that inspired this project :)
Click here to see more of the art we have been creating at Pademelon (an aged care facility for people with dementia).
Wescoat Inspired Landscapes
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I love the freedom of line Ella has achieved in her picture above.
Andy Warhol Influenced Self-Portraits
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| Jasmine M |
We used coloured highlighters to colour B&W photocopied photographs in the manner of Andy Warhol.
We created the background with rectangles of coloured paper glued onto a larger A4 coloured sheet.
The kids experimented with colour combinations, creating 6 different pictures of which they chose their favourite 4 to mount onto their backgrounds.
These were such a lot of fun to do - the kids love using the flourescent highlighters, and I love gently encouraging them away from the idea that colours have to be realistic!
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| Warhol: 'Marilyn' 1967 |
Minions, Minions Everywhere .....
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We watched the Youtube 'Minions Banana Song', which the kids thought was hilarious...
(with a brief discussion along the lines of "of course WE know that hitting each other is not the way to solve a problem, but these Minions just don't know any better ..." :))
Then we planned out our composition, using milk bottle lids as a template for the eyes - this kept the minions large in the page. We went over all our lines with black oil pastel before painting with chromacryl paints.
Thanks Charlotte for sharing your great painting! Gotta love the Minions!!
Grumpy Cat Inspired Clay Sculptures
Our last clay project was a moulded slab bowl, and before that we made a snake coil pot, so it seemed time for a good-old non-functional sculpture. So following our oh-so-successful Grumpy Cat drawings last week (thanks again to Mary and Kathy), which the kids just loved! I decided to use Grumpy Cat to inspire our clay work this week.
We started with a block of clay shaped into a bullet form (I cut 18 blocks from a 12 kg block of red raku clay). From this we squeezed in the neck of our cats about a third of the way down and reshaped the body to smooth the transition from neck to body.
We then pulled clay up from the back of the cat's head, flattening it into a more cat-like shape, and used this clay to fashion two pointed ears.
After rolling 4 spheres of clay for the eyes and cheeks (and a very small ball for the nose), we used our thumbs to push eye sockets into the head of our cat. From there it was all about using the score-and-slip joining method to secure the eye balls into the eye sockets and the join the cheeks and nose to the cat's face.
We also used wooden skewers to push a point into each eye and whisker holes. This serves to not only delineate the eye and whiskers (we'll hot glue-gun in some wire whiskers after bisque firing), but also to allow air into the quite thick clay ball of the cat's head for more even drying (although red raku clay is pretty forgiving!)
Finally we attached a tail to curl around the cat's body, and after a bit of 'brain surgery' with a thick piece of dowel (to get air into our solid block of clay!) our cats are drying out before the bisque firing. More in a couple of weeks when we finish them off!!
Grumpy Cats, and Thank You Pinterest (Again!!)
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| Talia (Yr 1) |
Today marks the first week of our third term - and for various personal reasons I had nothing prepared!! Pinterest to the rescue!
My heartfelt thanks to Mary at MaryMaking and Kathy at Art Projects for Kids for their Grumpy Cat lessons :) I showed the kids a Youtube video of Tardar Sauce the Grumpy Cat, and we were away!
We drew our Grumpy Cats with black marker (semi-guided drawing lesson, but with lots of encouragement for them to give their cats their own personalities - we even had some happy grumpy cats!) and smudged brown and black soft pastel. Then we created a background with felt pen, taking a line for a walk over the page. Cut and glue on our cats, and the finished products are really great!
In A Parallel World.....
Students started with an action photo of themselves standing in front of a blank wall.
Their challenge was to create a shadow of themselves in a parallel world - a bit like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland or the Narnia books. This world exists side by side with ours, and only needs a window or door to step from one into the other.
Like Peter Pan, their shadow can have a life of it's own. Instead of merely copying their real-life body, it should express something important about who they are - perhaps something they love to do like art, music or sport. It might even be symbolic - a lion, a playful rabbit, a dragon!
Finally, we created the background on the wall with watercolour pencil, imagining it as a window into a parallel world.
This project was inspired by this wonderful lesson which I found at Mini Matisse well over a year ago, and have had in mind ever since. It's a perfect project to finish the term, with loads of opportunity for students to stretch their imaginations!
This is our last lesson this term - our 2 week winter break starts now. Happy holidays!!
Cat Paper Sculptures (thank you Andy Warhol!)
After admiring some of Pop artist Andy Warhol's cats (see selection below) we made Cat Sculptures using slotted cardboard. Like Andy's 25 Cats named Sam, our cats are brightly coloured and each has a very unique personality!
From '25 Cats Name Same and One Blue Pussy' by Andy Warhol:
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