Shapes & Lines

Art is of course a very subjective thing. What is considered good and not so good varies greatly from one person to the next. I think as teachers we often feel pressured to make sure all our art is "successful". Sometimes this can take the adventure out of art lessons and make us overly prescriptive to our students. Also it can mean that we focus too much on the end result (a nice display on the wall for visitors!) rather than the simple skills that actually contribute towards growing our students' ability to create successful art. Sometimes it's worthwhile keeping it really simple. Well I think so anyway, you'll no doubt make your own mind up!

In this case, I was keeping it simple with a year 2 class. The children were engaged with a core fine motor skill of loading up their brush with paint and making deliberate and intentional, but not pre-prepared or penciled lines. This was repeated over and over. With one colour and one shape the students began roughly in the middle and continued to replicate the same but larger shape again and again until it disappeared off the paper.

To be honest, at first I wasn't sold myself – but I soon came around! Especially as I came to recognise the value in the basic skill practice, and when viewed together they became even stronger visually. I also think it was great for the children to see how striking and effective some simple repetition can be. The ones with several colours were completed one line each by the fast finishing students. There's an abundance of variations on this simple lesson that I look forward to exploring in the future.

City Perspectives

I can clearly recall a guided perspective lesson from when I was a year 6 student myself. While these days I usually prefer more abstract art, I remember how great it felt learning how to make a drawing more realistic. I think many children of this age enjoy that same feeling.

As a relief teacher the previous experience or disposition of a class towards a certain type of art, skill or medium is often unknown. Turns out this year 6 class really enjoyed making these single point perspectives, and kept up really well. After we completed the street and several buildings together the students were free to continue however they liked. Obviously the drawings were a work in progress when these photographs were taken and I'm sure they have gone on to be even more colourful and creative, or monochromatic and creative! 

 

 

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.

Primary Colour Gradients

Apparently a colour gradient (as I've just learned with a quick internet search), is a computer graphic term for a colour progression through a range of position dependent colours... or something like that. I loosely knew of the term and was enjoying a just post sunset walk with my nearly one year old son and was particularly taken with the way the sky seamlessly changed colours multiple times from the orange glow on the horizon silhouetted by the distant hills, to the deepening blue overhead interspersed with the first evening stars. And so an art lesson was born.

I'm calling them primary colour gradients, although I'm not sure whether they technically are or not... After some online image trawling I began by showing this stage three class some gradients on the smartboard including this Guillotine of Sunlight, Guillotine of Shade  by Peter Wegner. 

Like Wegner's piece, the gradients we created morph from one primary colour to another as they move through their secondary colour to meet. It's a little reminder and some useful practice at basic colour mixing and brush technique. Each student covered two pieces of art paper in their chosen colours and once dry, cut a large circle out of one and stuck it somewhere and somehow on their other piece. Usually centered, often opposing but not always, with some in between. Most, but not all students, chose to use the same colour way on each sheet.

The process was finalised over a few days with a great 5/6 composite class that I was with for 5 weeks at the beginning of this term. The whole class did really well and they were happy with the results themselves. As you can see the combined artworks made for a great display above the bag racks. 

As a serendipitous aside, Mark Rothko's Orange, Red, Yellow became the world's most expensive contemporary art work after being sold at auction for $US86.9 million in the week following the creation of our own similar art. I showed the class his work on the smartboard and I think it really helped to validate the simple but effective nature of their own art works. The nearly $90 million certainly piqued their attention too!

By Way Of Introduction

Hi I'm Joe, also known as Mr Hall. Thanks for stopping by my blog. 

Currently I'm lucky enough to work as a relief teacher at a number of schools here on the Central Coast. I really enjoy the variety this entails. And I really, really like it when there's room in the day for some art! 

While I wouldn't call myself an artist per se, it is hands down my favourite subject at school. I loved it when I was a student at primary school, and now as a teacher I still look forward to art time the most. 

The majority of the ideas and lessons on the blog will be my own, as much as these things can be anyway. I'm not sure that there are too many 100% original ideas out there? Whenever I know I've been inspired by (or am copying!) a particular artist or teacher I'll endeavour to make this clear. 

The art featured belongs to the children, please add your comments and let them know how great it is! If you're a school student yourself, make sure you have your parent or guardian's permission to comment, and first names only please : ) 

take care all the best thank you come again soak it in have a great day - Mr Hall