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!