Foundation ~ Owls in the Night Sky.

They're all finished and they look amazing!!! What hard working and very talented Foundation students we have at Marlborough.

Prep A - take a bow!!!

Now Prep B take a bow!!



Foundation ~ Modelling owls.

It's nearly time for our excursion to the zoo! I'm looking forward to seeing all the animals and taking lots of photos. I wonder if we will see any owls? I have had lots of little owls staring at me in the Art Room the past few weeks... How did so many owls get in the Art Room I hear you ask??? 

It was those clever Prep students! Look what they have made! Here are Prep A's creations.

And here are Prep B's little owls. Aren't they gorgeous?!

We used salt dough to make them and the students were so good at listening to my instructions and following my demonstrations on how to form the dough and model it into an owl. I took them home and baked them in the oven for a few hours to harden (and they smelled delicious but I had to instruct my own children that they were NOT for eating!!)

The following week, we painted our owls and prepared a background for them. Stay tuned for the final reveal of our owls, but in the meantime here is a photo of one cute little owl all painted.  Oh and of course, we just had to read 'Owl Babies' together while we made these!

Foundation ~ The Very Hungry Caterpillar balloon paintings.

Foundation students have had lots of fun the past fortnight immersing themselves in 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. Again, we spent some class time discussing the way Eric Carle creates his artwork and the techniques he uses. We talked a lot about 'texture' and 'colour' and making collages out of painted papers.

For our artwork, we painted the caterpillar's body and head with balloons.  We made sure the balloons weren't too big and... no... none of them popped!!

Then we cut out fruit shapes with some left over textured painted paper. We had a lot of fun using the hole punch to cut out little holes in our fruit, so it looked just like the book!

Adding some crayon details and highlights finished off our artwork. I think they all look so colourful! I especially love all those little pieces of fruit.  Here are Daniel and Nash's fabulous caterpillars up close.

Well done Foundation students - you all worked really hard on these!

Prep Class, Prep Class, What Do You See?

I see lots of Brown Bears looking at me!!!

We've had so much fun the past few lessons, learning all about the way Eric Carle makes his painted papers for his illustrations and trying the technique out ourselves. First, we shared the book 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See' and enjoyed looking at all his beautiful artwork and reading along with the rhyming words in the book.

Then we talked about Texture (one of the elements of Art) and how Eric Carle makes his illustrations look textured (we came up with words like rough, bumpy, grainy, scratchy etc).  It was then time for us to try making painted paper and there was such a buzz in the room as the children all set to work!  We painted large brushstrokes on our paper first and then added contrasting colours of paint in blobs. Next, we used the paint scrapers, texture wands and skewers to make some interesting effects with the paint.  The children really enjoyed this creative process and there were lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs' to be heard! It was then time for our papers to dry, ready for us to use the next lesson.

During our second session, we had some terrific Grade 5/6 'Art Apprentices' help us (thank you Lachie, Toby and Jaidyn).  We shared out our stack of dried painted papers and then started tracing our bear templates. This was a bit tricky but everyone did such a great job.

Next, we cut out our bear parts and glued them down onto blue card. For some finishing touches, students added noses, paws and hair using black oil pastels and a few had time to make some leaves out of green textured paper we had in the Art room.

Here are Josh R and Kaden's finished Brown Bears up close.  Don't the textured papers look terrific?

There was lots of chanting of "brown bear, brown bear, what do you see..." as we worked! Everyone finished their bears by the end of the second session and I think they look fantastic. I can't wait to make a display of them up in the office.  Well done Preps!

Welcome to the Marlborough PS Art Room Blog!

Thanks for stopping by! I will be sharing lots of student artwork and happenings from our Art classes here, so make sure you check in regularly!

During Term 3, our Art classes consisted of lessons that complemented the Integrated Topics of each year level.  The Prep-2 students were studying Fairytales and we had lots of fun with guided drawing sessions.  

We learned how to draw castles as well as discussing what the different parts of a castle were called (towers, turrets, battalions, drawbridges etc).  Our Foundation students did an amazing job of drawing their castles with white oil pastels on black paper. Some even highlighted the windows with yellow to make them look like the lights were on!  Here are photos of Will T and Carla's castles.

The Grade 1-2 students also worked on drawing castles - they used black oil pastels and bright watercolours.  These are displayed in the office building - I think they look amazing!

Grade 1/2 classes also spent some time drawing portraits of Kings and Queens. They used magiclay to add form and texture to their crowns and had fun decorating them with glitter paint and jewels.  Here is Ethan's King and Emily's Queen.

Grade 3/4 students enjoyed their topic of Media last term and we had lots of fun making comics and drawing cartoons (especially after Richard Galbraith's visit). We also looked at Pop Art and studied some artworks by famous artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.  We were particularly inspired by the artwork 'Whaam!' by Roy Lichtenstein.    Students used a variety of materials to create their own Onomatopoeia Pop Art. If you ask one of the Grade 3/4 students, I am sure they can explain to you what 'Onomatopoeia' means!  They certainly made me say "WOW!"

The 5/6 students studied Outer Space in Term 3 and we spent some time studying the Visual Art Principles of Perspective and Space. In particular, we looked at the optical illusion of 'foreshortening'. Foreshortening describes an extreme perspective, where objects on a 2-dimensional surface seem to reach out to you.  Things that are closer to you look bigger than the things that are far away.

Students created artworks of astronauts in outer space and experimented with this technique of foreshortening.  They began by tracing their hands and feet and then drawing the body smaller to give the illusion of the astronaut falling through outer space.  They look terrific displayed around the Art Room!   Here are Riley's, Stanley's and Jaidyn's.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about what we were learning about in Visual Arts last term.  I will continue to update this blog with photos and snippets of our lessons during the remainder of this year.  We certainly have some very talented artists here at Marlborough!