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)