The Fantastic Work in progress...

When I first got the foundation classes at the start of term two, they were a little unsure of most things art. One of the incredible things about students at this age is how they are at an age of undefined creativity. As we moved onto textiles, collage and scuplture this term I am blown away by their ability to see things in a way we as adults forget to, but as an artist myself strive to get back. This project was all about letting the students explore this creativity. They were to design in a group a fabric sculpture, coming up with an idea the whole group was ok with making. They had to scrunch, fold, or flatten to create their masterpieces.

These two girls created a beach scene complete with beach chairs and a shark.

These boys created a farm yard complete with elephants, pigs, donkeys and cows. 

This group created a happy clown grandma! 

The year 1/2s have started their printmaking unit and are working their way up to their final prints. They have learned about the processes, and have done 4 printmaking stations to get them ready for their Japanese print in the coming weeks.

It was really important for the 1/2s to understand the process, vocabulary, the elements of design and history before creating their Japanese print. 

The students have loved using their iPads in the design process.

The 3/4s are on their way to finishing their mosaic projects. I am really proud of the students, and how much work and effort they have put into these mosaics. Mosaics aren't finished quickly, and the students have helped the whole way along! They are also working on their finger knitting for the up and coming STEAM day art installation.

Will post soon their finished works :-) 

The 5/6 classrooms have been a flurry of activity as the students get ready to finish their fabric collage. They have worked hard on the design ( having to portray a strong emotion using fabrics, keeping in mind the textures of the fabrics, colours and weaving) be watching for a post of their finished works! 

Mosaic Mania!

This past term has been filled with team work led mosaics!
Both the 5/6s and the 3/4s have had the chance to design and put together a mosaic.

The  5/6s designed a mosaic during their inquiry in class. They then used their arts time to put the mosaic together. With the help of work experience students and staff we grouted, and finished the project by the end of term, which was a major accomplishment! I am really proud of the students and staff alike in the time they put in to make it possible. 

Stay tuned for the final unveiling of the awesome 5/6 mosaic pieces! :-)

The 3/4s mosaics are not quite done yet, they need to be grouted still .....but here's a sneak peak of some of the hard work the students have been doing.

These mosaics were made along side the awesome science teacher in my school, during team teaching of science and art. Shout out to the awesome PE teacher at my school too for combining classes to help break all those recycled tiles! These mosaics will be turned into planter boxes, and the students will plant during their science time.

The mosaic unit was a huge unit for me, and pushed me to really use my prior knowledge of my arts background. It allowed for team work in both the specialist teams, and in the grade levels. I am so excited to see the final products of both the students and staffs hard work! 

Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly Collage and Painting Project

As a Canadian, learning about Australian art history and the history of Australia I found a personal interest in the Sidney Nolan Ned Kelly series. Within the series I saw a great opportunity to discuss both Australian history and art technique. This made for a great combination of learning that was engaging. The students got to use their prior knowledge of colour theory, as well as their new knowledge about the Ned Kelly paintings.  We spent a whole class looking a video of the series and discussing what we saw in them. Many of the students were shocked by the images and had a lot to say about what they were seeing.

In the technical side of things, I explained to them two main things. How to create a landscape (using the Australian bush as our inspiration) explaining about what a horizon line is and why it is important to the composition. The other main thing we talked about was perspective, where the trees and the Ned Kelly character are larger the closer they are to the front of the image.They got to choose where they wanted to put their Ned Kelly and how big they wanted it to be. This project used many mediums, and took us awhile from the drafting and planning stage, to the painting stage, to collaging the Ned Kelly character. It was all worth it when the students pieced it all together and added final touches of the trees and bush land with chalk pastel. 

Our main image we looked at from the Ned Kelly series was: 

Here is the work of the 3/4 Childern: 

Andy Goldsworthy Sculptures

With the year Fives and Sixes I wanted to run a project that was extremely hands on, involved using natural materials and taught the very important lesson of "it's ok to fail."

For the first two lessons we looked at videos and pictures of Andy Goldsworthys work within nature. I showed the students a video from the documentary "rivers and tides." In this clip Andy fails at making his sculpture. It falls from the tree. We discussed how we would act if our sculpture didn't work and why it was all about the process of the work, rather then the finished product. We also discussed why it was important to fail after we completed our project. Students responses were "I would not have made such a good sculpture had my first one worked" and "I had to think harder about how to get it to stand". These are very important conversations to have in order to build studentscritical thinking skills, that can come in handy in solving daily life problems! Yay for sculptures that allow students to be resilient to failure and to have the guts to keep trying. 

Some of the Finished works: