Gretchen's lesson with 6 & 7 year olds The children made several pieces of art based on a single sunflower. The observational drawing they made at the beginning of the day was beautiful. The second drawing was a repeat of the first but with their non drawing hand.  They moved on to making a large black crayon sunflower. They prepared themselves for colouring, by making a blending strip in oil pastels. Then they went on to adding the colour to their sunflowers. Blending practice strips. Some of this lovely art will be on display in our hall. Our a ..read more

Gretchen's lesson with 6 and 7 year olds Ted DutchThe children's inquiry is set in space, so I used the art of New Zealander, Ted Dutch as our inspiration.  The children identified the signature faces on Ted Dutch's space men. They endeavoured to use the faces in their own renditions. They drew several spacemen/robots and selected their favourites.  They used kebab sticks and Indian ink to draw the figures on a large piece of paper. They managed the unusual tools very well. Observational drawings to start the day The backgrounds were full of white crayon lines that ..read more

Carrie's lesson 7-8 yr olds We started the project by looking at architecture designed by Hundertwasser, noticing the lack of straight lines, use of bright colour, pattern and organic/ environmental themes. The children then had to draw a cityscape which encompassed some of Hundertwassers ideas and painted this using watercolours. They were encouraged to mix and make new colours from their limited palette. The next stage was to paint the water which included reflections of the city. These will be sent home soon for their fundraising calendar art. brainstorming 'what makes Hundertwassers ..read more

Carrie's lesson 7-8 yr olds I had done this project with older children and wanted to see how the younger class would go. We started by looking at paintings and architecture designed by Hundertwasser, noticing the lack of straight lines, use of bright colour, pattern and organic/ environmental themes. The children then had to draw a cityscape which encompassed some of Hundertwassers ideas and painted this using watercolours. They were encouraged to mix and make new colours from their limited palette. The next stage was to paint the water which included reflections of the city. These will be s ..read more

Freedom Friday printmaking with Carrie As we are near the end of two terms doing printmaking on a Friday afternoon, I thought it was about time to post all the wonderful work thats been created. The small group of children aged 5-10 yrs who selected printmaking this term, have screen printed using paper stencils, created monotype prints and had a go at relief printing. Last term a group of 7-10 yr olds created multicolour relief and monotype prints. The images that follow show all the wonderful art that's been created on their printmaking exploration. Monotype prints ..read more

Gretchen's lesson with 9 and 10 year olds The observational drawing today was from a photo of a chicken. I encouraged detail and size.  They moved on to draw their chicken on a large piece of coloured pastel paper with a black crayon. They performed a small oil pastel blending exercise on an extra piece of paper. They added colour to their drawings with oil pastels, blending where appropriate. The black outlines are wax crayon as they don't blend into the colour. I introduced 'notan' designs to them, as they finished their chickens. They became very creative and experimental ..read more

Carrie's lesson 7-8 yr olds The Rimu hub have been focussing on movement in their science inquiry this term, so we were keen to support this by incorporating kinetic sculpture into the plan. The project started by looking at the work of Alexander Calder and setting a brief. The resources were hidden and we had a 'masterchef' style choosing and reveal of the objects each table would be using. I encouraged the teams to draw ideas on paper before construction. There were some very creative ideas and many groups achieved movement and some balance ..read more

Gretchen's art lesson with 6 and 7 year olds. I asked the children to design 5 different bird shapes, fantasy birds. I was impressed with their variations. Some were flying, some walking etc. During the previous art day, the children prepared a scratch board. They had covered the page with a thick layer of multicoloured oil pastel, then a layer of black paint. They selected their favourite fantasy bird shape to draw into the black paint. I suggested they try to make the drawing touch two sides to encourage big birds.  They added details to the body of the bird using the kebab sticks. T ..read more

Carrie's lesson 6 yr olds Most of the children were familiar with the book 'Where the wild things are' by Maurice Sendak and after reading this, we talked about drawing from your imagination. We discussed what features a wild thing might have, including claws, teeth and horns. A few children drew examples on the board of what they imagine these would look like, then it was their turn to draw a wild thing.The background was also from their imagination and they used a combination of crayons and dye to bring it to life. In the afternoon I read 'Maui slows the sun' by Gavin ..read more