3D Feathered Friends

Our bird sculptures have been bisque fired and are ready to paint and finish with feathers and twine.
This is the most anticipated lesson of the term, and well worth the wait!

'I Am' Paintings...

We started with a brief discussion about animal symbols in art, remembering our Chinese Symbols Cherry Blossoms Project last year, when we explored animal symbolism in Chinese art. We discussed the traits we commonly associate with animals. For example we decided that social butterflies probably like to spend time with friends and go to parties, while cats can be very loving but also like to spend time alone. Dogs are loyal and clever, lions are brave and fierce, and dolphins are known to be very clever! We chose an animal we think symbolises us best, or has traits that we admire.

We created our pictures with oil pastel and acrylic paint before adding our photographs to the composition. In deciding where to locate the photos we thought carefully about the direction our images were looking towards, so that the implied line of our vision draws the viewer's focus into our paintings.

Ruby

2D Feathered Friends

In a previous lesson we created clay bird sculptures, using a basic pinch pot for the body before carefully adding wings, beaks and other detail with score and slip.

It will be a few weeks before our clay birds are bisque fired and ready to add finishing touches with paint, feathers and twine.

This week we considered our art in 2 and 3 dimensions as we worked with manipulated photos of our  clay birds. We started with black marker to pick out detail and to add interesting backgrounds, trying to imagine what our finished birds will be like with feathered topknots and tails. The next step is using 4B pencil to add areas of light and shadow, creating the impression of 3 dimensions in our drawing.
Finally we added colour with soft pastel, paying particular attention to layering and blending the pastels for interesting textures and depth of colour.

Hannah

Raining Cats & Dogs .....

Although Cyclone Marcia was well away from us when it crossed the coast near Yepoon last Friday, we certainly felt her presence with a whole lot of rain! Most of us battened down the hatches, roads flooded and some schools were closed. I even had to cancel Friday's art class!

However every cloud has a silver lining, and the weather event gave us some great inspiration for our art project this week. Students came up with all sorts of unusual things it could be raining, and completed their pictures with crayon and sponge-applied turquoise, blue and black watercolour. Enjoy!

Eadie

What's In A Name?

Last week students wrote their names onto watercolour paper, in preparation for today's project.

I traced all the names with PVA glue (it needed to dry overnight!), and then this week we transformed them with pattern and colour.

After tracing around the glue to make the letters stand out, and adding decorative embellishments, we soaked our paper in a tray of water before experimenting with dripped watercolour using pipettes and eye-droppers.

This week is all about experimentation and discovery. We discovered the colours blend well together, and what happens when we mix complimentary (opposite) colours! Watching the colours blend and fan out through the wet fibres of the paper is really fascinating, not to mention beautiful!

Naomi

Penguins

Our first Art Day after the Christmas Holidays - Welcome back everyone! Ready for another GR8 year of Gr8 Art??

The last week or two of the holidays was SO hot and humid - and one of the best places to escape the heat is the movies! Many of my students have seen the recently released 'Penguins of Madagascar', so we've used this to inspire our art this week. Skipper, Kawolski, Ricco and Private all feature heavily, with a few evil Octopus Daves in there too :)

We watched a trailer of the film before looking at some promotional posters, making special note of interesting compositions, movement and colour. We used black marker, crayon and watercolour pencil to complete our pictures. Our finished art really captures the humour and personalities of the characters!

Olivia