Ming Vases

Year 5 made these Ming Vase arrangements by closely following Miriam Paternoster's fantastic art lesson found here – I had been waiting for ages to try this project with a class! The only change worth mentioning is that I gave the students a variety of vase outlines to trace instead of drawing their own. This saved some time as it's a relatively time consuming, but engrossing project : )

Cloudscapes III

A third instalment of cloudscapes. Some students in this 5/6 composite really dove in with reckless abandon, which was great to see, and admittedly a little scary at times! I am really impressed with the subtlety of some of the colours a number of the students created.

And as you can see below they really do make for a great feature on a classroom wall.

TTTPs (or Two Terrific TeePees)!

I'm always up for some alliterative fun : ) This year 2 class used textas to draw two tall (and terrific) teepees before adorning them with repeated patterns featuring triangles, lines, zig-zags, circles etc. To complete their teepee scenes they used watercolours to paint their background landscapes. Some teepees were set in front of sunburnt and dry desert-like landscapes while others featured lush green grass with far-off mountains.

I guess "Cowboy and Indian" movies, toys and the like aren't as prevalent these days—the children all being more familiar with subcontinental Indians than Native American Indians. Hopefully they'll now remember that the Native American Indian people are just like our Indigenous Australians, people who lived and thrived in these beautiful landscapes long before freeways, cities, factories and the rest.

Cloudscapes II

These graphic cloudscapes were created by a year 5 class within their first few days of school this year. They were embarking on a weather unit to begin their studies and these were a great way to quickly brighten up the bare walls of the room. You can view my inaugural cloudscape post here. 

The students painted these with regular acrylic paint after viewing a diverse selection of cloud photos including sunsets and sunrises, storm clouds and much more. I think there must have even been some aurora borealis in there judging by a few of the colours! Some students also added some subtle oil pastel the following day. I really enjoy the variety of responses from the students.

The three grids of nine artworks that I've used meant that the 28th student was left all alone... I hope they don't mind! To make up for it I've copied and rotated the photo of their cloud four times resulting in the symmetrical pillow-like cloud above.

Autumn Leaves

I think the technical term is mixed media... real Autumn leaves and paint in this case.

It must have been nearly 10 years ago. I was doing a uni prac at Gunning Primary School in the Southern Highlands. It was a breath of fresh air to be out of Sydney where I was living at the time. I was with a great K-2 class and was lucky enough to have some art time with them. Autumn was in full swing so it seemed natural to get out and play in the deciduous leaves before collecting some and taking them back to class.

We tore the leaves up into small pieces and stuck them down in a single tree shape. The next day we added paint and then some oil pastels the day after. It was great fun and really effective. I've always been meaning to repeat the lesson but haven't had a chance till this more recent episode.

The Autumn scenes here are the result of a collaboration between a kindergarten class and their 5/6 "buddy" class who I was with earlier this term.

Time was tight so I brought the leaves in myself, also there weren't any deciduous trees on the school grounds. The first 40 minute lesson was spent gluing down the leaves. It was helpful having the older children here as this can be a bit fiddly and frustrating. During the second lesson the kindergarteners painted in the rest with some guidance from their buddy if necessary.

I think the kindergarten children were happy with their results, I know the 5/6 students certainly enjoyed it — in fact I'm pretty sure they were a little disappointed they didn't get their own ones... If I have the opportunity again next year I'll repeat this one for sure.