Whole School - Vincent Van Gogh

Celebrating the current exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, students across all grades have been investigating the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. Students were so engaged during our lessons, enjoying short videos and stories about Vincent as well as viewing a variety of his famous artworks. It has been so rewarding to hear students talk about his artworks (texture, movement, vivid colours) and recognising some of his works (Starry Night, Wheatfield with Cypresses, Sunflowers).

Our Prep-2 students enjoyed creating beautiful sunflowers for a collaborative display. They used oil pastels to draw, colour and blend their sunflowers and showed great persistence when cutting them out!

The 3/4 students have studied in detail some of Van Gogh's landscape paintings, particularly focusing on Wheatfield with Crows. Using oil pastels, students created their own wheatfield, experimenting with textured marks and perspective.

Our senior students were inspired by Van Gogh's chair and created their own 'pop-up version. Using fineliners and pencils/markers students drew their chairs during a guided drawing session. Patterns were created for the floors and the wall was decorated. After a bit of tricky manipulation with extra paper and making slits in parts of the chair, the final artworks were complete!

Stay tuned for some more photos of Van Gogh inspired artworks from our students.

5/6 ~ Mindfulness Art Journals

Our senior students have been experimenting with a variety of art techniques to create their own mixed media art journal. We discussed the benefits of art journalling for mindfulness, relaxation and expressing our thoughts in a positive way.

Some of the processes we experimented with included;

• Drawing and creating backgrounds with watercolour pencils
• Printing and Stamping
• Collage (washi tape, scrapbooking papers, tags, cardboard, die cuts, stickers, recycled book pages, ribbons, digital downloads, gelli print papers)
• Painting with gesso, watercolours, acrylic paints
• Calligraphy and Lettering for quotes and journalling with a variety of pens and markers
• Using the cuttlebug machine to emboss papers and create die cuts

We created our journals by stapling together folded brown paper bags. We folded them in a particular way so that there were a couple of little pockets inside so students could pop some keepsakes or notes inside them. It was so pleasing to see all students experimenting with different techniques and creating a journal that was as unique as them. Well done Grade 5/6!

3/4 ~ Emily Carr and Ted Harrison landscapes

To complement the 3/4's topic of geography, we have been learning about landscape artworks and how artists use space and perspective in their compositions. Throughout our lessons, the students have shown they have a very good understanding of the foreground, middleground and background in artworks. Here are some flash cards I made for our word wall.

Emily Carr was a Canadian artist (and also an Art teacher!) who loved the northern forests of Canada so much that she painted them to preserve them for all to see. Like Van Gogh, Emily painted skies that seemed to move - even her trees looked like they were swaying in the wind.

We discussed how to create a sense of depth by drawing/painting larger tree trunks so that they appeared closer (foreground) and smaller trees that look further away in the background. The students did a fantastic job of this with their Emily Carr inspired artworks!

Next, we investigated the amazing work of Ted Harrison. We shared the book 'A Brush Full of Colour', which was all about Ted, his life and his art. We were fascinated by the fact that Ted grew up in a coal mining town in England, which was very dark and gloomy. We wondered if this was why he loved to use so much colour in his artwork - because there wasn't much of it around when he was a child. Ted travelled to many parts of the world but fell in love with Canada and the Yukon territories. Oh and he was also an Art teacher!! Here is one of his colourful artworks that we were inspired by.

Students used coloured oil pastels to draw their landscapes, layers and swirls. They then used liquid tempera paint to fill in each area. Once the paint was dry, students reworked their coloured pastel lines to make their work really pop.

And here are some of the wonderful creations Grade 3/4 students made. Stunning!

1/2 ~ Indigenous artists, arts and crafts

Grade 1/2 students enjoyed reading the book Welcome to Country and we admired the beautiful illustrations by indigenous artist Lisa Kennedy. We also shared some artwork by Bronwyn Bancroft and talked about her use of organic shapes, symbols, dots and colours. It was interesting to note that some of the artwork we shared and discussed was painted from a bird's eye or aerial view.

Using brown paper as a base, students were able to create their own artwork, inspired by some of the techniques used by indigenous artists such as Lisa Kennedy and Bronwyn Bancroft.

Once we had finished working on our paintings, we shared a book called 'Collecting Colour' by Kylie Dunstan. It was about a young girl and her friend who collected and dyed pandanus leaves with their families. They then learned how to weave baskets and mats with the leaves.

It was our turn then to have a go at weaving. We remembered some of the techniques we learned when we did paper weaving and sewing in earlier units. We talked about the pattern of over and under, in and out. The students did such an amazing job weaving their baskets with a variety of threads, yarns and wool. Outstanding work Grade 1/2!

Prep ~ Rhyme Time!!

Preps have been developing lots of different skills in Art this term, linking in with their classroom topic of Rhyme Time. We enjoyed reading and singing The Owl and the Pussycat, as well as our favourite, Incy Wincy Spider.

To create their Owl and the Pussycat artworks, students used oil pastels and watercolour paints to create a resist background. Then they created a collage of torn 'pea green' papers for their boats. Finally, students drew their owl and pussycat, cut them out and glued them down. Lots of different techniques explored and they look amazing!

To create their incy wincy spiders, students painted a paper plate and then threaded string through the holes in the plates - just like weaving a web. This was tricky, but everyone did such a great job. Our 'incy wincies' were made by painting egg cartons and adding details. Great work Preps! Now we are learning all about Vincent Van Gogh.