August 2013 Updates: Art Attack class in action

My classroom set up for mess... We used some unusual painting materials, such as prickly plant pods!

The students completed their works about the three plains of landscape using the paint covered plant pods for texture.

Here are the students works on the walls. On the right side of the wall the works belong to the Wednesday afternoon Art Box class.

We had very messy but controlled experimental painting session. Students used Japanese ink drawing technique (Sumi-e), blowing ink with a straw and dripping methods to create Chinese scroll-like abstract landscapes, embracing chance and chaos as a way to create and explore art. I always have a circle of chairs to start and finish every lesson.

I was VERY happy with the results!

These are some of the best examples – notice the large range of mark making options and rich exploration!

Although the pictures look like an explosion of chaos, the lesson itself was actually highly controlled and directed. The students stopped their work many times for further instructions and explored a little bit every time, constantly reminded to change points of view, think, look and turn their work upside down to find new lines.

And from controlled chaos to a completely different theme... After 4 weeks of landscape we moved to portraiture, and visited the sculpture exhibition, “crowning glory”. The exhibition wasn’t very child friendly (look how high those pedestals are!) but it was a good resource for some traditional academic observational drawing.

After drawing busts the students worked on self portraits in the workshop.

After their work doing some hard core academic drawing, it was time to move their portrait making onto the next level. They did some life drawing (each one got to be a model on the white chair for one or two minutes while the others drew in charcoal). Next they made their own textured paper by rubbing oil pastels on coloured paper, starting with textured materials like corrugated cardboard, then found textures in the room. Finally they found textures to rub outside. The kids loved this task very much!

They tore the textured papers into pieces and created large A3 collages of faces They used contrast as their guideline, pairing textured and smooth pieces and various colours to make a complex surface.

They added the facial features last, using other textured materials like corrugated cardboard and cellophane. I was very pleased with the results, as my aim was for them to work large and with confidence while maintaining proportions, which was accomplished (and more!)

This was done by the youngest kid in the group, who just turned 5 years old. He even made 3D ears!

See you in our September presentations, where we farewell Winter and welcome Spring officially!