Storms at Sea in Oil Pastel

 It is coming into the storm season here in Queensland - as we move into summer, afternoon storms become common, and later in the season Cyclones become more likely. Living at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, one of my favourite things is watching the afternoon storms sweep in from the ocean. As the sky blackens, sometimes the sun breaks through to bathe the ocean and land below in heightened brilliant color.

Bronte B

Initial Playgrounds & The Happiest Accident

Painting our Gremlin sculptures takes just over a half lesson, which leaves me with about 30 minutes.....

One thing all of my kids seem to love is the adventure playground. Even my year 7s often ask if they can play on the equipment during the break (sorry guys, since many kids choose to work through the break I can't be there to supervise, so it's not going to happen!)

Students start by drawing their initials large on the page, with a horizon line. Their task is to create an adventure playground using their initials as the support structure.

Alexander K

Finshed Clay Gremlins

Clay Gremlins - Monday Group

Our clay Gremlins are finished.....
To see how they were created, go to my previous post 'Naughty & Nice Gremlins.'

Silhouettes on Soft Pastel 'Marbled' Paper

I was looking for a different application for soft pastels - and a way to creatively use all the little left over bits and pieces that seem to accumulate at an astonishing rate! On Pinterest I stumbled upon this great lesson from artisan des arts, using a technique I had never seen before - using soft pastels almost like a marbling medium! I'm not really sure how to label this one - it's not exactly marbling, but it's not a painting either. Either way, it's great fun and very effective - these on-line photos really don't do them justice!

Glasshouse Mountains

The Glasshouse Mountains are the remains of volcanoes, the central core or plug exposed through gradual weathering, rising from the coastal plain of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. They were formed more than 26 million years ago. There are 11 mountains in the group, the largest three being Tibrogargan, Mount Beerwah and Mount Coonowrin (often referred to as Crookneck). They have great cultural significance to their traditional owners, the Gubbi Gubbi people.

"In aboriginal legend, the mountains are members of a family with the father being Mount Tibrogargan and the mother Mount Beerwah. All of the other mountains are sons and daughters with the eldest being Mount Coonowrin.

Tibrogargan, the father, observed that the sea was rising and asked that Coonowrin the eldest son help their pregnant mother to safety. Terrified, Coonowrin instead fled. Infuriated by his sons cowardice Tibrogargan pursued him and struck him so hard that he dislocated Coonowrin's neck.

Once the danger passed Coonowrin felt tremendous guilt for his actions and asked his father, brothers and sisters for forgiveness but all wept with shame. This is said to explain the many small streams that flow through the area. Tibrogargan turned his back on Coonowrin and gazed out to sea refusing to look at his son Coonowrin who continues to hang his head in shame and weep." (Wikipedia)

This lesson is inspired by the painting 'Glasshouse Mtns, Sunshine Coast' by local Caloundra artist Damien Lange. I love the composition of his painting, with the mountains sitting on a curved horizon line and river flowing through the foreground. With Damien's kind permission I used his painting to discuss composition, line and movement with the students.

Emily H (Yr 3)

Naughty and Nice Clay Gremlins

Bronte B (Year 3)

Back to school after a wonderful 2 week break! Halloween is just around the corner, and although this isn't an event traditionally celebrated in Australia, I'm finding more and more of my kids are joining in the fun! I don't usually 'do' Halloween projects, but it does provide an opportunity to delve into fun fantasy projects - so this week we're creating Clay Gremlins :)

Talk About Art! An exercise in Art Appreciation.

Alexander (Year 2): The Champion! 48 Points!!!

At the end of each of my lessons I devote 5-10 minutes to the 'Art Show'.... where we reflect on what we have achieved that day. Becoming an artist is as much about thinking and reflection as it is about doing. I want my students to be able to appreciate and discuss their own work and that of others.

Cool Paper Toys

It's the last week of the school term!!! Two weeks holiday ... YEAH!! I wanted an engaging, fun activity to celebrate ... I've been saving these Paper Toys for just such an occasion!

Paper Toy Shark

More Australian Native Animals

More Australian native animals, drawn and painted using some traditional Australian Aboriginal designs and techniques. Click here to see how we created these great pictures.

Kangaroo - Charlotte K (Year 2)

Australian Native Animals

Indigenous Australian art is rich in tradition, texture and earth colors. Often depicting stories from the Dreamtime, the art style incorporates the use of many media and techniques including dot and x-ray painting, rock and bark painting, sculpture and fibre arts to name just a few.
This week we've explored just a small part of this rich culture, looking at examples of paintings of native Australian animals by indigenous artists using the dot and x-ray techniques.

Emu

More Dragonflies & Various Other Insects!

More dragonflies - and various other insects! Click here see how we created these great pictures :)

Alexander K (Year 2)

Dragonflies & Various Other Insects!

Saturday (September 1) was the first day of Spring, so it seemed a good time to create a light and lively dragonfly picture. Looking at pictorial examples we observed the basic structure of the insect body - the three main sections of head, thorax and abdomen, and how the legs and wings attach to the thorax. Then we looked at how simply a basic insect template can easily be changed into various types of insects simply by altering the shape and size of the wings and body component parts.

We created the background of our pictures with leaf texture rubbings of flourescent oil pastel and watercolor wash . While our backgrounds dried we drew our insects, starting with the 3 basic body sections and then altering them to create insects of our choice - many chose dragonflies or butterflies, while others went for bees, preying mantis and a variety of other insects. We traced over all lines of the insects with sharpies and finer permanent black markers before adding color with the flourescent oil pastels, then cutting them out and gluing onto our backgrounds.

Our pictures are shimmering with a lovely iridescence, and are very Spring-ish!

Candice N (Year 6)

Whale Watching!

It’s the end of winter here in sunny Queensland (Australia), and the humpback whales are on their annual migration north along the Queensland coastline. If you’re very lucky you can occasionally catch a far-off glimpse of what might possibly be a whale spout on the horizon from my balcony, but it’s a much better idea to hop on a whale-watching day cruise where the ‘friendlies’ will often come up close and personal. It’s truly quite a memorable experience!

I thought it was an appropriate time of the year to do a whale picture, so we looked at photographic examples before drawing a breaching humpback (guided lesson) which we then outlined with black marker and finished with black watercolor. We made a collage of torn painted paper for the background.

Of course some kids decided they’d rather do sharks (which are also common in our waters), octopuses and even mermaids – hey I’m happy they are so creative! Great job everyone!

Humpback Whale Collage

A-Mazing Dinosaurs

This is a half-lesson we did with time left after painting our Hippos. I found an amazing site through Pininterest called KrazyDad.com. He has created hundreds of downloadable mazes, at all levels of difficulty, from easy ones for children through to more difficult ones to challenge adults. I printed off some of his easy dinosaur mazes and the children used them as inspiration to create art pieces around them with colored pencils. Some drew more realistic environments for their dinosaurs, and others abstract or semi-abstract backgrounds.

Pottery Hippos

This week we’ve painted our pottery Hippo sculptures. We made them a couple of weeks ago by joining two pinch pots for the body, then added legs and head (and in some cases hats, bow ties etc!) using score and slip method. After bisque firing we use water-based house paint to finish and decorate. I find house paint has a good coverage and is (relatively) water-resistant on pottery, so it wears well. Pottery is always the standout favorite lesson each term!

Kristen C (Year 7)

Futurama.....

Black marker and felt pen. The original inspiration for this great picture is from Deep Space Sparkle, thanks so much. The children draw a futuristic city, taking inspiration from a picture from ‘Futurama’, layering buildings from the front and imagining what the future might look like. What will our transport be? Will we still drive cars, or ride in flying buses? Or (as one of my students imagined) will we be transported in our own personal travel-bubbles? An art piece limited only by our imaginations, this has been a great success…

Amy H (Year 7)

Cats with Attitude

 Taking inspiration from Christina Bretschneider’s cats, we talked about body language and expressive color before creating our Cats with Attitude, using soft pastel.

Bronte B (Year 3)

Favourite Olympic Moments....

Using oil pastel scratch art technique we’ve created drawings of our favourite Olympic moments. First cover page thickly with colored oil pastels (I stress the need to use light, bright colors that will show up well through the black). Paint over the entire area with black paint (add a dash of dish-washing liquid to help it spread and adhere to the oil pastel). Use skewers or other sharp tool to scratch your design into the black. While they were drying we created an oil pastel border using similar  color choices – light and bright.

Zoe O (Year 6)

Hippopotomi

Aren’t hippos the most wonderful  art subjects? For these pictures we’ve used color sticks thickly on blue paper, and the results are fantastic. My young artists had a choice between drawing their hippos with fish and river plants (adapted from a collage idea on Deep Space Sparkle, with thanks) or from a high perspective as though looking through the thick forest at the river below (inspiration from Philadelphia Zoo Hippo Art). Others made up their own interpretation, and they all looked spectacular when they’d finished!

Caillou C-F (Year 4)

Great Waves

I saw this idea (thanks Carly Dellger on Artsonia) and thought it would encourage the students to think about different ways of applying their paint. We started with a simple rendition of a large wave, and added details – some kids followed the original and added japanese fishing boats with a mountain in the background, others made cities being engulfed by tsunamis, and other added surfboard riders and sea creatures… All outlines were traced over with black marker and color added with watercolor wash or acrylic. The fun part was using straws to blow watered white acrylic across the tops of the waves to create a foam effect.

Arabella Y (Year 3)

Ultimate Holidays!

The last lesson before the holidays, so a holiday themed picture seemed appropriate. I’d previously taken photos of the kids, which I photo-shopped to ink-sketch effect and to take out the background. The kids drew their idea of their ultimate holiday destination in the background (free drawing with fine black marker, no erasers allowed!) and colored with water-color pencil leaving their faces black and white. Aren’t they effective? We had everywhere from Paris to the Moon, underwater cities and Lollyland!

Murray L (Year 2)

Picasso-style Roosters (and Other Birds)!

Crayola color sticks on black paper. Have I mentioned that I love using these? The colors are brilliant and they work terrifically on black and colored paper, as well as white. This piece started out as a rooster (that was the guided lesson I did anyway), but of course many of the kids had their own ideas…. and what a fabulous job they did too!

Jakobe C (Prep)

Clay Funky Fish

Thanks Kerri Welty on Artsonia for your inspiration for this lesson. We cut the fish from a slab of clay using a template, then added texture, fins and bulbous eyes. Finally we used skewers to pierce holes in the fins and tail for later decoration. After bisque firing we painted them with house paint (it has better coverage and stays on better than acrylic) and added wire (coiled around a pencil) and bead decorations. Very funky!

Kyla R (Year 4)

Oil Pastel Monsters

This week we’ve created monsters with large googly eyes and comical facial expressions. After drawing our monsters we outlined them with thick lines of oil pastel that we smeared inwards to give our monsters dimension. We then smeared a second line around the outside in a complementary color, smearing it outwards to produce a ‘halo’ effect, and mounted them on colored paper. Everyone used their imaginations to come up with some truly unique creatures!

Emily W (Year 2)

Faux Stained Glass

Permanent marker on acetate, backed with foil (based on idea from Jane Berzner on Artsonia) I simply glued foil onto a piece of copy paper, wrapping the edges over to the back for a neat finish. The kids drew their pictures onto a sheet of A4 paper, and traced with black marker onto acetate. We flipped that over (so that the colored marker didn’t erase the black as they colored) and used colored permanent markers to color, leaving the background clear. When finished we attached to the foil with double sided tape. A very effective project that really had the ‘wow’ factor.

Emily H (Year 3)

Fantasy Self-Portraits

I took silhouette photos of the children, then photo-shopped out the face details. The kids covered their pages solidly with oil pastel, then placed their photo print-outs over the top. After a demonstration of After a demonstration of stylization, they first traced heavily over the outline of their face and hair, then added any details they wanted to on the face… we had everything from fairy queens and elves to ravening zombies! They loved seeing how their lines picked up the oil pastel on the opposite side of the page to give them a multi-coloured print of their drawing. We then cut them out and glued them onto the oil pastel background. Very effective and lots of fun!

Fantasy Silhouette

Pop Art in the style of Burton Morris

We loved looking at examples of Burton Morris’ explosive Pop Art. We created our own with Crayola color sticks (the best thing since sliced bread!) and cut paper. Thanks Donna Woodrow on Artsonia for a great idea. The kids loved it!

Bella G (Year 6)

Toucans

After looking at pictures of tropical birds, especially toucans, we used black oil pastel and acrylic paint to create our pictures.

Estelle T-F (Year 3)

Lorax

Taking inspiration from The Lorax movie, we’ve created Lorax pictures using black marker and soft pastel. We took special care with layering and blending our colours.

Ary G (Year 7)