Sketchbook Skills
Year 4 have been using their sketchbooks to develop ideas for a three dimensional artwork, inspired by the ceramic sculptures of Sarah Villeneau.
Life Cycles into Wallpaper.
Year 2 have been learning about the life cycle of a dandelion, and making sketches from observation. They developed these into wallpaper designs inspired by William Morris, using the spine of their sketchbook as the line of symmetry, to create designs using collage and printing techniques.
Stone Age
Year 3 are learning about the Stone Age, and so we have been using natural objects like stones, shells, twigs and feathers to learn about mark-making. After creating a background wash in earth tones, the children took their sketch books to the 'cave studio' to add surface texture, emulating the surface of a cave wall. We have explored natural materials and texture further by using charcoal and rubbers to create hairy mammoths, and clay paint to draw in our sketchbooks. The children have learnt about materials and imagery used in cave art, and adapted these skills to make artworks of their own.
Year 6
Year 6 are reading 'Floodland', written and illustrated by Marcus Sedgewick. The illustrations are made using a printing technique called a woodcut which involves cutting into a block of wood and taking a print from what remains. Marcus Sedgwick uses different lines to create images, and we focussed on this, as well as descriptive passages from the text, for inspiration. Although we did not make woodcuts, we had a brand new box of black chunky markers with a chiselled nib to imitate the technique, creating images using line. We had to get used to holding the pen in different ways to achieve different thicknesses of line; and focussed on this during our warm ups. Initially the children copied pictures from the story whilst they became familiar with the technique, going on to make their own images to illustrate the 'Floodland' story.
Printmaking
Year 4 have developed their leaf observations in print, using paint, rollers and polystyrene squares which have been drawn into using a sharp pencil. This technique allows the children to make multiple prints of one image, sometimes layering one on top of the other.
Water Experiments
Year 5 have been learning about how different artists represent water. This is linked to their topic about the River Amazon. In this lesson we used straws to blow bubbles in water and drew what we could see at the same time. We used water soluble writing pens which dissolve and change colour when water is applied on top of them. We have been looking closely at the pen and ink drawings of moving water by Leonardo Da Vinci for inspiration.
Colour Mixing
Year 4 have been learning about colour mixing, using the Autumn leaves to help them begin to learn how to mix and predict colours accurately.
