Underwater Tints and Shades

Following the ocean theme, we learned more about value, and mixing tints and shades.

A couple of years ago I did a project involving similar techniques based on this 'Tints and Sharks!' lesson from The Bees Knees Cousin (note: that blog seems to have a new home but I can't see that lesson on it) - that time I didn't use the ocean theme, this time it fit perfectly!

I also came across a similar sea turtle picture on Pinterest that took me here. I liked the 'star burst' effect for the background so gave the children the option of painting a 'star burst' instead of concentric circles.

We used ready mix paint, starting with white and adding blue. I knew from experience that children find it quite a challenge to mix the colours to achieve a gradual effect but they were all successful. We then added silhouettes with black paint. A couple of the children found painting small details very difficult but overall everyone was really pleased with their results.

Kensuke's Kingdom (bringing art and literacy together!)

Earlier this year a lot of our learning was linked to the Michael Morpurgo novel, Kensuke's Kingdom (his best children's novel, in my opinion). Of course that meant an ocean theme for much of our artwork!

The front cover on our edition of the book had noticeable similarities to The Great Wave, the famous print by Japanese artist Hokusai. This led to a great discussion of the art, its significance for the story, and other allusions in the novel (e.g. 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'). Sure enough, Hokusai is mentioned a number of times in the narrative and art becomes a central theme to the story.

Bringing art and literacy together definitely made for a deeper understanding of both. As you can see, the children also took it in turns to paint a large version of the novel's cover for our wall display!

Doodle Deserts

My class was asked to create desert pictures to project as a backdrop for a show we're involved in. I had a few ideas but once I'd seen this doodle desert from The Lost Sock, I decided we had to try it! The Lost Sock post has step-by-step instructions which I roughly based my lesson on.

We started by discussing the 'Desert Song' which our art would be used for and drawing at least five repeating patterns on our mini-whiteboards. Children shared their pattern ideas and a lot of them associated their patterns with certain parts of the song - sand, wind, sun...

We then drew the main elements in pencil, with contour lines and concentric circles around the sun, and went over them in pen. It surprises me every time how difficult some children find drawing hills and circles! It was then on to the patterns!

At school we don't have permanent black pens so the Lost Sock technique of using markers with water wouldn't have worked. Instead we used coloured pencils and had a discussion about the colour wheel and blending different colours to add tone. The photo doesn't really do the colours in this picture justice.

Although the finished results turned out relatively similar, they are also all really effective and lots of learning went on in the process.

Symmetrical Sculptures

This project is from the autumn. In maths the children were learning about symmetry, a lot of them had also just got really into origami so this was the perfect lesson.

My only regret is that I only have photos of a couple pictures. Some were really creative and intricate, some found the folds more of a challenge or muddled up the symmetry by changing colours, but they all turned out fantastic!

Rather than give an explanation of how we did these, I would recommend a look at Art with Mrs Gram where she gives step-by-step instructions (complete with videos) and lots of examples (with much nicer coloured paper, it has to be said).

William Morris Prints

This series of lessons on design and printing also fit into the Victorian theme :) I always like it when different subjects fit together...

We learned about William Morris and how he wanted to preserve traditional arts and crafts. We then focused on motifs and patterns by studying his designs in groups and together on the Smartboard. The children identified the themes used in the designs as well as how the patterns repeated and reflected using symmetry.

In the next lessons they worked fairly independently through the steps of:

1. Planning a motif and designing it on 10 x 10 cm paper; 
2. Printing their designs using Styrofoam; 
3. Evaluating and developing their designs (some of the original motifs were beautiful but too intricate for Styrofoam prints!); 
4. Mounting and presenting their work with a title and description.

 A lot of learning went on about the design process as well as the art history, pattern and printing.

There are many great resources linked to William Morris, including weeks and weeks worth of resources to download from the William Morris Gallery and this video of block-printed wallpaper (from the Victoria and Albert museum) which had my class absolutely mesmerised, even with no sound.

Tartan Victorian Ladies

Last term every class made tartan art for a display and, since we were also learning Victorians, Victorian ladies in tartan dresses seemed a good variation on the theme.

While planning I came across two very helpful posts on 'a faithful attempt': a tartan tutorial for plaid cat collages and ideas for historical costume collages. My lesson is a combination of the two!

We started by painting sheets of tartan. I think the guide on a faithful attempt is pretty fool-proof, although some children were determined to do things a different way, and those ways were not always terribly successful (a good learning experience in any case)!

Once everyone was happy with their tartan, we drew and cut out the ladies. We kept the shape simple (which is good as it proved difficult enough). A few children needed multiple attempts to draw the dress big enough. 

I wondered how the majority of boys in the class would respond to making a Victorian lady but they enjoyed it, and learning about amusing Victorian fashions - including the dangers of ladies' skirts, corsets and how little boys wore dresses!

L.S. Lowry Street Scenes

Though not actually Victorian, Lowry's street scenes seemed to fit in perfectly with the theme, and the factory chimneys and crowds of 'matchstick men' definitely caught the children's imagination.

This lesson was also intended as an introduction to one-point perspective. We started with images to prompt discussion about perspective in general before looking at this specific technique. Using a Lowry image on the Smartboard, we could work out where his vanishing point had been and draw on the lines he must have used.

Everybody started off with two rectangles and lines leading towards the vanishing point to create the street scene. Despite having the same starting point, the drawings all came out very differently. The most confident were able to add lots of details, side streets etc.

The biggest challenges were remembering to use the vanishing point for all the details and recognising whether the vertical lines were parallel (there were a lot of leaning doors and windows). Some children who were confident drawing 3D objects using oblique projection and parallel lines, also made more mistakes as they were tempted to draw parallel lines rather when they should have gone from the vanishing point. 

In any case, the results are now all looking fantastic on our Victorian wall display!