Gr 5/6 ~ Christmas decorations and cards.

Following on from last week, our yarn ornaments were dry and ready for us to remove the moulds. Here are Megan and Chloe's decorations - they are just going to add a bit of glitter and bling to really make them sparkle!

We also 'whipped up' these colourful cards using a wax resist technique - drawing a simple image on the front of the card with white crayons and then painting over the design with watercolours. Don't they look effective?

Grade 5/6 ~ Christmas crafts.

Our scrapbook pages are just about complete and they look fantastic. Well done guys - you have documented some great memories from this year at Marlborough and I hope you continue to document your story through scrapbooking or art journalling. In years to come, you will really enjoy looking back on these.

It seems a bit early, but with only a few weeks left of term, the Grade 5/6s have started on their Christmas crafts. We've started to make some glittery yarn ornaments. Students could choose to make a bauble or a tree.

For the baubles, students blew up a balloon and selected some yarn/string. Then they dipped the string into the papier-mache paste we made up and wrapped it around the balloon. They're now hanging up to dry and we can hopefully pop the balloon and add some glitter and bling to the yarn ornaments next week.

For the trees, we used cardboard cones and wrapped them in plastic wrap (so the dried yarn won't stick). Then we dipped our yarn into the papier-mache paste and began wrapping around the cone. Once dry, we hope to remove the cardboard and plastic wrap and have a free standing yarn tree. Stay tuned for some photos of our finished ornaments...

Grade 5/6~ Dot paintings finished... onto Scrapbooking!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we've been working on dot paintings and they are now on display in the Art Room. Well done Grade 5/6 - they look so eye catching as you walk into the room!

And here is Lily's painting up close - amazing work Lily!

We are now onto our next project - Scrapbooking!  This is one of my favourite hobbies and we have so many great materials to work with (papers, punches, stamps, ribbons, washi tape, journal cards, cuttlebug dies, embellishments etc).  Some wonderful parents and community members have donated some supplies they no longer need (thank you Sue B and Hannah L). 

Students - if you would like to bring in some supplies for your pages that you have at home or have purchased with this project in mind, please bring them in on Monday for our class.  Otherwise, I have plenty of materials for you to choose from. 

Grade 5/6 ~ Linking Visual Arts with Government

During Term 4, Grade 5/6 students have been learning all about the Australian Government and we have been complementing this topic during our Art lessons.

Did you know that Parliament House in Canberra houses an extensive collection of Australian Artwork and that some of the pieces were commissioned especially for the building?  One of the best known artworks at Parliament House is the Forecourt mosaic and it is based on Indigenous artist Michael Nelson Jagamara's painting called Possum and Wallaby Dreaming.  The  mosaic measures 15 metres by 15 metres and is made up of 90 000 hand-guillotined granite pieces in seven different colours!

The mosaic depicts Jagamara's Dreaming (creation time) ancestors - the brush-tail possum, red kangaroo, rock wallaby and goanna - all gathering for an important ceremony. The tracks of these ancestors are shown moving toward concentric circles in the middle of the mosaic.

In class, we discussed the use of symbols and dots in Aboriginal artwork, as well as the use of warm, earthy colours. We then spent some time sketching and planning our own stories using some of these symbols before beginning to paint.  Some students have finished their work already!

Emanuel's artwork tells the story of people sitting around a campsite/waterhole with their digging sticks and shields. Emu, kangaroo and goanna tracks are nearby.

Joshua's artwork tells the story of animals near running water and a waterhole.  There are emu and kangaroo tracks, as well as a honey ant.

As you can see, students have created some interesting lines and patterns to tell their stories.  I will continue to post photos of student work as more are completed. The students have worked really hard on these and most importantly, enjoyed the process. It takes a long time to fill a page with dots!

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!