Planet-esque Christmas Cards

Well before Christmas we designed cards to send off for professional printing. The idea for our card design came from the smART Class blog.

Children chose either brown or black paper for the background - both turned out well, although brown was more effective on the printed cards.

We started by drawing the branches, layering lighter and darker green and brown oil pastel.


For the ornaments, we sketched shapes on to a separate sheet of white paper. We coloured using oil pastel, with white and black to add highlights and shadows. Adding tone to the baubles reminded us of the planet pictures we made last year!

If pupils wanted to add a lot of patterns to their baubles, they drew the patterns in fine black pen, coloured with felt tips and then added the highlights and shadows as normal.


The completed ornaments were cut out and stuck on the branches.

As a finishing touch we used watered down white paint to splatter over the whole picture - always a popular technique!

Everyone was pleased with their pictures and their cards, plus it was a good chance to review the concept of tone. Thank you to the smART class blog for such super inspiration!

Op-Art Stars

One of the few activities I can remember from primary school had something to do with joining points on an axis to make a cool sort of pattern. I'm not sure what the intended relevance of this activity was to anything but I wanted to try it with my own pupils. After a fruitless internet search for 'drawing lines to make a cool pattern', I decided to use my memory as an inspiration for an activity of my own.

The activity I came up with was the 'Op Art Christmas Star'. Rather than just drawing a cool pattern, it could be used to learn about a style of art, use of line, shading and other things too.

1. Start with a cross - e.g. 20 cm by 20 cm, intersecting at the centre point.

2. Mark each centimetre along the lines - right to the end of the line.

3. The next bit is hard to explain in words but quite simple in practice. Draw lines in one quadrant at a time.

Draw a line from the point furthest from the centre on the vertical line to the point closest to the centre on the horizontal line.

In this example I would go 10 to 1, 9 to 2, 8 to 3, 7 to 4, 6 to 5, 5 to 6, 4 to 7, 3 to 8, 2 to 9, 1 to 10.

4. Depending on how you want the stars to look, you could go over the lines with a fine black pen and shade the boxes - perhaps getting lighter towards the centre. It also looks great drawn with metallic pens on black paper. Whatever really!

I'm looking forward to trying it out properly with the class as we ran out of time!

Sewing - a Surprise Success!

Last year some of the kids in my class had a go at 'sewing' with special kits, complete with felt shapes with holes and large plastic needles.

Most children found that craft very challenging but I still wanted to try 'real' sewing with them this year. The simple Christmas tree idea from Angela Anderson's art blog was just what I had in mind.

I gave out paper triangles which the children traced on to scraps of fabric. Using basic stitching, they sewed up the two longer sides. Before completing the bottom of the tree, they filled the decoration with stuffing and glued a rectangle of felt on to the inside for the tree trunk. After stitching up the bottom of the tree, we added shiny stars and thread for hanging, and cut the edges with pinking shears to prevent fraying.

Using small sharp needles on normal fabric seemed to actually be easier for my class than the felt sewing kit. I think it was more inspiring for them too. Even the boys were going home and sewing decorations of their own!

Tints and Shades

As everyone had been following the Olympics, we started on sport-themed silhouette pictures. This week we talked about tints and shades and painted backgrounds. Later they will paint a silhouette of someone doing sport on top.

I have to admit, since I started browsing art blogs, the number of original art lessons I've taught has definitely decreased - there are so many good ideas out there I want to try! The tints and shades background is no exception. I can't remember where I first saw an example but 'The Bees Knees Cousin' recently posted helpful instructions. I was surprised how challenging this activity was for my class (and that it took the whole afternoon). They especially found it hard not to get too dark too quickly. I think the backgrounds turned out well in the end though!

Back to School!

This seemed perfect for the first day back - an activity which involves pupils' names and no paint! (Helpful for a first day back in a classroom with no sink.)

I'd seen the idea on a few blogs and  the instructions on artisan des arts were particularly helpful  - complete with pictures for each step. I started writing my own instructions for this post but really it's just better to follow the link!

A week later most pictures are finished and look fantastic hung across the room. It was also interesting to see how the children all managed - some found it really tricky! Some started out with crooked triangles, others struggled to draw letters the right size and position... I don't like to do things for them but perhaps in this case I should have helped more to get them off to a good start. It's hard to know!

Onomatopoeia Art

This is an idea I've seen on a couple of blogs but I saw it first on Artisan des Arts. It was particularly perfect as we're studying onomatopoeia in language, 1960s in history and Pop Art in art!

After some language work each child chose one example of onomatopoeia for their art. They had to think about what style of writing would suit the word, draw it and colour it in a single colour using felt-tipped pen. The second stage was covering a piece of paper with cut out newspaper. Pupils were encouraged to use columns and paragraphs to guide their cutting and to overlap the newspaper in all different directions. Thirdly, they drew some kind of explosion or cloud shape on the back of the newspaper sheet and cut it out. They stuck the shape on a piece of coloured paper and then cut it out again leaving a border. Finally, they stuck down the shape and word (which they had also cut out - this project was great for scissor control!) onto another sheet of coloured paper and outlined the word in black.

I love the way these are turning out and there are still a lot of really creative ones still to be finished.

Work in Progress

A week ago we started our Op Art mural and it is still work in progress. We had discussed Op Art before Easter (and during a visit to a modern art gallery) so we just had a brief review of the style and talked about the use of line and colour before the colouring began. Everyone in the class has coloured at least a couple of 'squares' so far.

I first saw the idea on Artisan des Arts (which also linked to another post) and used the advice to create this project. I stuck together some large sheets of paper and drew the design. Pupils have been colouring alternate boxes (which I'd marked with a small 'x') and have just started to colour the remaining boxes black. We all liked how it looked without the black but adding it does help to cover up any mistakes as well as make the design stand out.

We're really enjoying having this project on the go and I would definitely try it again - it would be fun to try out other Op Art designs. I would also get pupils more involved in drawing out the design. I'll post the final results when we're done!

One small step for a man...

...one giant display for the classroom! As we were finding out about the 1969 lunar landing, I decided to start a large piece of art that all the kids could be involved in making. Two of the children were traced around and groups got to work filling the outlines with scrunched newspaper to add texture then painting the astronauts white. Other pupils made the lunar surface with grey chalk or pastels, some painted the Earth on black paper and used white chalk and black pastel to finish it off, the flag was paint with wax resist for the stars and two pupils wrote a title and painted it silver. I think there are still a couple flags, badges and other things to add to the spacesuits but I wanted to get it all up on the wall asap before the end of the year.

Having made this group display, I think we might try another before the end of the year. We worked on Op Art a bit before Easter and the children really like it. Think we might try the idea I came across here over the next couple weeks. It would be a good thing for pupils to work on if they finish work early etc. Hope we have time to try it!

Beach Art

The picture on the left is by British artist Andy Goldsworthy who is known for making art from nature. Last week we took a walk to a nearby beach to have a go at our own natural art. The kids didn't have much of a chance to look at examples by artists before doing their own examples but seemed to have plenty of ideas! Results ranged from the journey of the Titanic, a smiley face, an alien and word art to the more abstract. One child claimed also have made 'true art' (i.e. it was a rock pool to which they had done absolutely nothing...)! Everyone had a lot of fun. Here are some examples (the 'tower' was by our outdoor learning leaders who joined in as well!).

Op Art Towers/Caterpillars/Tornadoes...

When I stumbled across this idea on the Deep Space Sparkle blog, I knew I would have to try it. The pictures on-line looked amazingly 3D and it seemed a good way to teach use of lines, tone and shading. Sure enough, the kids loved learning about 'Op Art' and found the project rewarding - we also now have a very cool looking display outside our classroom!

Having read the advice from art teachers who had posted this lesson (I looked at several blogs - the one above, 'Art with Mr E', artisan des arts and Teach Kids Art to name but a few!), I thought it best to start small. I gave my class A5 paper for their designs (about 21 x 15 cm) to make things a bit easier and, as you can see, after a couple of lessons there are still some designs unfinished!

We went through the project together, step by step, starting with the central wavy line and (in theory) added six points along it. Pupils then built up each 'tower' of curves one at a time on one half, then turned the paper and did the other half. Using slightly thicker black markers and going back to the dots each time helped them to get a more '3D' effect.

Even before adding colour the designs were looking good. They all practised shading gradually from dark to light on the back of their designs and we spoke about choosing from different colour families. Adding in the work on colour wheels and colour families was a bit much for some - I think next time I would do as others have done and just use a few colours for the whole design. Will definitely be using this lesson again!

Space!

We're starting a project on space and we've been working on tone so this seemed like the perfect lesson! I got the idea from the very helpful 'Deep Space Sparkle' blog. Actually, it was searching for space-themed art that led me to this blog which then led me to discover art blogs in general!

Because I couldn't find any dark chalk, I resorted to oil pastels. This proved to be more of a challenge for blending but also gave nice bright results.

1. Pupils drew around different objects to make about 6-8 circles on white paper which they coloured in with pastel. Rubbing the pastel on lightly seemed to make the blending a lot easier later on.
2. White pastel was added (fairly thickly) to one side of the circles and black pastel (much more lightly) to the other. The white and black could then be blended in towards the middle. They then cut out the planets.
3. We made the backgrounds by splattering white paint mixed with water on to black card before gluing on the planets and adding finishing touches. We talked about having a light source and making sure all the planets were  facing the right way (most used an object on their desk to be the 'Sun' so that they could point the light sides of their planets towards it).

Miniature Rooms

Once we finally got our classroom looking like an art gallery, it was time to make the highlights of the exhibition - miniature rooms! Originally I had thought of making rooms in shoe boxes but that seemed a bit fiddly. Thankfully I came across a useful template on the fantastic 'smART Class' blog.

I let the children choose one of our artists - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Colourists or Joan Eardley - as the inspiration for their rooms. Not sure if my Eardley example had anything to do with the number who chose her, or whether they just wanted to grafitti their walls, but they all worked away very happily over several lessons - first decorating the walls with the template laid flat, then adding bits of furniture and other details. After making the template with them, doing some planning together and going over some ideas, I basically just got out every kind of material I could get my hands on and let them go for it!

Joan Eardley

These lessons go back over the past few months but it's the holidays so I have time to post them! I discovered Joan Eardley one day while looking on the internet for Scottish artists. Her art is super interesting (the kids thought so too), especially as a lot of it shows the poor children who lived around her studio in Glasgow back around the 1950s.

For our Eardley-style art the class worked in pairs - each pupil had to draw a person and colour it in with pastels (we talked about drawing faces, adding tone and blending with the pastels - a lot of them didn't really believe where the eyes etc. should go even after a demonstration but nevermind). They loved that they got to 'graffiti' their backgrounds with chalk, pastels and bits of newspaper and foil before cutting out and sticking on the people. I think a large proportion of the class are now big Eardley fans!

Scottish Colourists

After looking at some still life by the Colourists, we arranged all the suitable objects we could find on tables around the classroom before sketching and painting them (ready-mix paint this time). It was the inspiration for my blog name and that's about all I need to say about that lesson!

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Chairs

This was a big challenge - especially because it involved symmetry as well as sketching and shading. I printed out lots of pictures of Mackintosh-style chairs for the children to use. They made sure that they'd drawn a line exactly down the middle of their chair before cutting the chair in half and sticking one half down on their paper. Then they just needed to draw on the other side of the chair - easier said than done, particularly when the chairs had arms, but they made a good job of them!

Rennie Mac Roses

After Christmas we started studying some famous Scottish artists with the idea of putting together our own art gallery. The obvious artist to start with was Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The kids loved learning about him and his work - they researched his buildings, wrote biographies and kept bringing in Mackintosh-style things (everything from jewellery to napkin holders) from home.

For this lesson we looked at how Mackintosh used the rose motif and looked in particular at a stained glass window from the Mackintosh-designed House for an Art Lover. Pupils sketched their pictures first with pencil - some copied Mackintosh's design very closely (as in the photo), others did their own thing as long as they used the rose motif and line patterns.

Before painting with block paints we talked about the colour wheel and pupils filled pieces of scrap paper with different shades they had mixed - this helped a lot with the roses! After the pictures were painted and had dried, they went over the lines with a fine-tipped black marker as the final touch.

Mixed Media Illustrations

Back in the autumn we had a visit from a fantastic children's author and illustrator, Petr Horacek, which inspired us to create and make our own storybook illustrations.

Pupils came up with stories on an animal theme before designing characters. It was a fairly free task but they had to use different media for the character and background. Most did their characters with pencils or crayon and then stuck them down on a background made using wax resist techniques. They had a lot of fun trying things out, just a shame we never actually got around to making the books!

Paint and Pastel African-Style Art

These African-style pictures were part of a class project and made a for quite an eye-catching display. The idea is from a lesson I observed when I was still a trainee teacher. The art specialist used it to teach the children more about colour and tone and, when I did my version this year, it was the first time the pupils had heard of tone.

Pupils sketched out two or three women on their page (depending on whether their paper was portrait or landscape) before colouring with oil pastel (black plus a colour for the dress and jewellery). They then had to draw a line in a lighter shade down one side of the person and, I think, a darker shade down the other side to add some tone - this proved quite tricky for some!

For the background we used the block paints with plenty of water for an 'oil' resist effect, trying to blend gradually through different colours. If pupils had 'cold colour' dresses, they did 'hot colour' backgrounds and vice versa. Whether or not they got the hang of tone, the results all looked great! I will try to find more photos...

African Safari Silhouettes

Ok, so this was my example rather than one of the children's but their pictures actually turned out fairly similar. I'd had the idea of using crayons and paint to make silhouettes with a sunset as part of our African theme. However, then I saw a picture of something similar using tissue paper for the background and putting black paper shapes on top. Although in some cases the children found their animals tricky to cut out, overall the cutting and pasting technique worked really well. Plus, these pictures were lovely and bright for a wall display!