Symmetrical Silhouettes

Year 4 were working on these stylised trees for a short time at the end of each maths class. Unfortunately only a few were completed in the time I was with them — I hope to see more of them fully realised when I get a chance to visit their class again.

Using grid paper printed from this very handy site, I asked the students to make a stylised but symmetrical tree. Working from the bottom and centre, they began by drawing in pencil, then traced this with black markers before finishing with brightly coloured backgrounds of their choosing. 

Most students only seem to enjoy this type of detailed art for a short time, so just doing a little bit each day seemed to work well. As you can see, some of the trees are very stylised — I'm not sure how many were secretly drawing something else... but at least they were busy! 

Textured Landscapes

Year 6 sketched the bones of these stylised and vertically-orientated landscapes in pencil and then traced over these with black textas before adding different repeating patterns in each section. The students used a combination of coloured pens, textas and pencils to achieve the textured appearance. 

This is a lesson I copied verbatim from Miriam at artescuola.com - it's one of my favourite blogs! I showed the children the work of Miriam's students on the other side of the world, which really helped to capture their attention. Some students copied the scenes they saw there, others were inspired by examples I made on the board and some created their own altogether.

Nine Lives

Each year 4 student created nine various pictogram-style people in black and white. They presented their collection as a 3 x 3 grid on a piece of coloured construction paper.

I was with this particular class for a full week and they mostly worked on these during early finishing time. Initially I brought up some examples on the smart board and they sketched ideas in pencil before transferring them in permanent marker onto the small squares of art paper I had pre-cut. I asked the students that each of their nine people be obviously different in some way.

It was a good way to occupy the students between other activities and I think they enjoyed the collective process. It's an effective way for them to manipulate positive and negative space too. This is the first time I've tried this lesson but I'm sure I will again in the future. I think it could also be a good opportunity to look at and imitate Keith Haring-style people, but this is a future lesson!

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.

Tiptoes In

The night before I was called in to take this kindergarten class for the day, I came across Standing at the Edge of the Water by Helena Wurzel.

I really like it. I hadn't planned to use it as a lesson so soon but it was a warm Spring day (34 degrees celsius to be precise) and we had some time, so we dove right in... I mean tiptoed in! As it was a bit of a spontaneous lesson, I'd like to improve my delivery next time. The classroom had no smartboard to display the art with, so these were created sight unseen. This would be the most important improvement — to show and discuss the artwork being imitated beforehand. I'm not usually a fan of copying an artwork so directly, but as we say in our house "rarely say never".

Each child traced around their own feet with a lead pencil (they loved getting their shoes and socks off). These pencil lines were then traced with a black permanent marker (I was trying to avoid them having marker all over their feet). They were also asked to add in their toenails and a gently waving water-line across their feet spanning from one edge of the paper to the other. In future I think I'll try and have the students allow for the bending of the water line as it curves over the feet.

The feet were coloured with oil pastels before the sand and sea were blocked in with water colours. To be honest I've had little experience with water colours and I've never used them with kindergarten before. I'm pretty sure it was their first time too and they seemed to enjoy them. As I said I'm looking forward to better presenting this artwork as a lesson again one day. I'm thinking it could be great for colour-mixing with older students. Please share any suggestions you have!