Marcos Masks

A favourite year 5 class made these striking masks around 2 years ago, I'm more than a little late posting – and yes, I did just say favourite! ; )

We began with pencil, then used permanent markers and finished with some water colours. The masks are inspired by a Hallmark greeting card illustrator named Marcos Roman. I know this because I pretty much verbatim, used Don's excellent lesson on his always inspiring blog Shine Brite Zamorano.

The Good Ship Endeavour

The HMS Endeavour was sailed to Australia by Captain James Cook and his crew well over 200 years ago now. The ship and the intercontinental mode of transport in general were featured in these year 4 students’ studies. Together we embarked on the challenge of sketching this tall ship. I initially lead a guided drawing lesson which the students then completed themselves and later embellished with some simple watercolour ocean and sky.

Art vs Science

Displaying these Ryo Takemasa-inspired insects all together like this reminds me of a classic scientific insect identification chart—although these insects are more art than science; insect-ish rather than scientifically accurate. We briefly discussed the very detailed, exact and useful art of scientific illustration and contrasted it with the stylised insects Ryo has created.

These year 4 students pre-sketched, then penciled in their own stylised insects. There was a selection of real insect photos for them to view on the board as well as a selection of Ryo's insect illustrations. Next they traced their drawings with permanent marker and finished with watercolours. 

Most of the students were really happy with their results, and so they should be—they look great. However, they're possibly not quite as good as Ryo's... yet!

Here's a dragonfly by Ryo Takemasa. You can (and should) see more of his work here.