Drummers Drumming

Year 1 were very proud of their drummers, and rightly so! We began with a guided drawing lesson in lead pencil, traced the lines in oil pastel and then painted. We also retraced the black outlines after painting. My guided drawing was inspired by some CD cover art by Paula Cox, you can view it here on a previous post.

Musical Moments Inspired by Paula Cox

These musical moments were made after year 4 observed this series of album covers created by British artist Paula Cox. The students created their own scenes in pencil, then traced the "good bits" with permanent markers before finishing with watercolour paint.

I like the variety of responses from the students and I think they have captured the emotion and simple joy of music much like Paula has. I always keep this lesson up my sleeve as a relief teacher, you can read more about the lesson process on my inaugural "Musical Vibes" post here. Another post featuring more oil pastel variations can be found here.

Musical Vibes II

A second installment of Musical Vibes, this time at the hands of a 4/5 class. These vibrant moments are inspired by the artist Paula Cox and her jazz and classical music scenes. A number of these students obviously have more contemporary leanings in their musical tastes! It's always good seeing new ideas and influences coming from the students.

Musical Vibes

This is an art lesson that I've repeated again and again in my 6 years of teaching. I'm always really pleased with the results and invariably the children are too. I've employed this lesson or a slight variation of it with every year from 2 to 6. It has been continually refined from the day I picked up this Jazz Café – Latin compilation CD on my way out the door before school one morning.

After lunch that day I had the children create their own musical scene based on the cover art. I was so taken with the students' resulting work that I had soon made a larger laminated copy of the CD cover and also collected a small number of photographs of musicians playing instruments as inspiration. I now carry these with me to use whenever a day allows for some art time. More recently, with smartboards in most classrooms I have also been able to quickly and easily introduce the children to the other great musical scenes that Paula Cox created for the entire Jazz Café series. You can view them all here.

The lesson begins with some appreciation of the Latin percussive scene as depicted by Paula Cox. Together the children recognise (occasionally with some prompting!) big bold shapes, the limited amount of colours, minimal use of fine or intricate details, as well as the way the scene fills and bleeds out of the frame. There's obviously more to discuss, and they often pick up on more, but these are the foundations. I convert their observations into a checklist on the board. The students then create their own vibrant musical scene from any genre or culture based on these guidelines.

I use a square piece of paper and always have the children plan out their scene lightly in pencil. Some students need a number of reminders that although they are really good at making very detailed and accurate drawings, they need to practice a different kind of art here! I make a few quick sketch options on the board as inspiration. Although some children end up simply copying these, many create their own scene entirely. 

I will definitely continue with this lesson and post the results here again in the future. I only wish that I had recorded all the other great musical scenes the children have created previously!