Op Art

Op Art (or Optical Art) uses line, contrast and often very precise mathematical composition to 'trick' the eye so that the viewer perceives different visual effects such as movement, warping, swelling or even hidden images.

We've had some fun this week, creating a 3D optical illusion using nothing but a black pen and very carefully drawn lines. Each one is completely different... some have achieved a clearly defined 3D effect, while others intriguingly look as though they are emerging from flowing water. Even our 'happy accidents' look quite amazing! Our artists have done an great job with this challenging project, which required a lot of care and patience! 

Emma

More Mad Monkeys

What do you call a monkey with a wand? Hairy Potter!

We're celebrating the Chinese Year of the Monkey with mad monkey cartoons, and mad monkey jokes!!

Monkey Madness

With 2016 being the Chinese New Year, Year of the Monkey, we are celebrating with a guided drawing using B and 4B pencil with soft pastel. These 'how to' pencil drawings take concentration and patience, and I am always astounded at what our artists (many of whom are in lower Primary) are able to achieve!

Sophia

Dreaming with Chagall ...

Modernist artist Marc Chagall  grew up in Russia, later working in the US and France. His painting 'Paris Through the Window'(1913), symbolises his dream of living and painting in Paris.

Looking at this wonderful painting, we noticed Chagall's use of symbols, floating figures and expressionist use of colour. We talked about places we dream of visiting, before creating our art in watercolour or tempera resist.

Like Chagall, we have used a window to separate our inside 'now' place and our outside 'dream' place, with a figure (ourselves or a favourite animal) looking out of the window towards ourselves floating over our dream place.

Our pictures are lively, colourful and very imaginative!

Ethan

Warhol Inspired Endangered Animals

Our art this week is inspired by Andy Warhol's 'Endangered Species' series, looking especially at his use of colour to evoke feelings about his subjects.

We're using black marker and layered oil pastel on digitally manipulated photos of wild animals, thoughtfully selecting our colours for emotional impact, before adding a final layer of black oil pastel. It is exciting to see our animals re-emerge as we scratch the black away.

Happy New Art Year!

We're celebrating the start of a new art year with an explosion of fireworks!

Many of us saw the new Peanuts movie over the holidays, and we started the lesson with an amusing short clip from the movie for inspiration. We looked at the basic shapes of the main Peanuts characters, and discovered that the same shapes can be used to draw all of the characters with individualisation of the hair and clothes.

Many students chose to create cartoon self portraits of themselves as Peanuts characters!