It’s been all about robots this term for Grade 1 and 2! We started off with some robot sketches, moved on to an enlarged robot painting and finished with a mixed-media robot relief artwork. Students learnt about what relief means, in terms of a fusion between 2D and 3D. Students had the opportunity to use a variety of different materials, such as tiles, buttons and eclectic pieces of metal and wood. The results are some fantastic robots, which are bursting with their inventor’s creativity! What I loved most about this project was seeing the girls really embrace the robot theme. At first lots of the girls were like “Ohhh robots. I don’t like robots!” which got me thinking, “Do they actually not like robots? Or do they think girls can’t like robots?” However, over the term the girls have slowly embraced the robots and have absolutely loved designing and creating their circuitboard friends! I doubt I’ll ever hear a girl from Grade 1 or 2 tell me they don’t like robots anymore! To see this display, please visit the ground floor hallway, in the main building.
I’d have to say that these sculptures were probably one of the most fun projects I’ve ever done with students! The Grade 5/6s really embraced this project and their creativity thrived! Five weeks ago, we came together as a class and discussed Ryniak’s aesthetic style, such as chubby tummies, warts, wrinkles, small in scale and monochromatic (in most cases). This rich discussion lead to a series of sketches, where students could start to imagine their creature on paper. The following weeks were all about the 3D work. Students experienced working with clay – thank you to the mums who came and helped me during the clay lessons, you were lifesavers!! Students learnt about mixed-media by working with faux fur, beads, wire, tissue paper, pipe cleaners and faux leather. To finish, students had to fill out a self-reflection sheet, which encouraged them to think about their ideas, craftsmanship, problem-solving strategies and skills they learnt or needed to employ to create their sculpture. Watching the students rush over to their sculpture at the beginning of the lesson and excitedly gather their materials to start creating filled me with joy! I’m so proud of these kids and the amazing work they do! Hopefully you enjoy looking at the sculptures, as much as we enjoyed making them!
As part of the Space and Science-Fiction Art unit this term the Grade 5/6s are focusing on the work of American sculptor, toy maker and drawer, Chris Ryniak. This week, students explored his work through rich discussions and developmental sketches. Next week we will bring these drawings to life, when students create their creatures out of clay!
We read If the dinosaurs came back by Bernard Most and discussed how dinosaurs and humans could work together to help each other (in an ideal world, where dinosaurs didn’t eat us haha). The students LOVED this artwork! It had two layers of creativity: creating their own sentence from their imagination and then composing an artwork that matched their sentence. This artwork was all about writing and understanding how illustration conveys meaning.
This term students in the Senior Art Extension Class have been designing and painting their own artwork onto skateboard decks. Students had complete free reign to design whatever they liked for their work and the results are incredible! The students were inspired by graphic designers such as Andrea Preis. There are still three skateboards that are unfinished, which I will photograph later and add to this post. Enjoy!
This Term the Grade 3/4 students focused on the characters conceived by filmmaker and artist Tim Burton. Students learnt about proportion in terms of elongated limbs and bulbous eyes and heads, typical of Burton’s aesthetic drawing style. Students did a series of developmental sketches before choosing one of their sketches to develop further, into a finished character portrait. Students had to stick to the grey scale, and thus learnt a lot about using shading to create a spooky effect. I think Tim Burton would be very proud of our talented students at Bell!
To see this display, please visit the board on the right of the foyer as you turn down the hallway.
Here are some timelapse videos of the face painting workshops.
To finish off the documentation of this wonderful project, here is a video of the Living Gallery. All students were invited to come to the netball court and be part of the Living Gallery, in which students from Prep – 4 could come and view them as living artworks. Well done Grade 5/6, you’re truly amazing!
Wow! What an amazing experience the face painting workshops were for every child involved!! Thank you to all who donated face paint, without your generosity this project would not have been a success.
We started the workshop off by showing the students the videos below and then asking them questions about how Humphries and Meade’s work relates to the I ain’t gonna paint no more! project we’ve been working on since the beginning of term.
Students offered up insightful perspectives on illusions, using skin as a canvas and playing with ideas and concepts to change how we interpret artwork. Students demonstrated higher-order thinking skills when exploring and responding to the artworks, through means of class discussion and artistic expression during the second half of the workshop. Students were given 20 minutes to paint their partner’s face and then they swapped and had their face painted. Students that chose to opt-out painted a mask. It’s so great to see young primary school children participating in such great contemporary art projects!
Thank you to Paige and Max from Grade 3 for being our official photographers for the day! You did an amazing job capturing the creativity of the workshops!
Andrew Williamson helped to run the workshops and took some of these amazing close-up portraits below, just stunning!
Following on from the photographic portraits, here are some collaborative portraits done over a 50 minute session. The idea behind this stage of the project was to spark a conversation around ownership of artwork, leading up to the face painting workshop. Each student was given a piece of paper and was told to only draw two things on the face, for example an eye and nose. The students then swapped their drawing with another person and drew two more facial features. There were 7 swaps in total. We had such a great reflective discussion regarding who owned the work and why. Some students were territorial over their first work, others weren’t fussed and believed everyone owned the work. Some students tried to tame works, others tried to make them more wild. Some students respected the style or aesthetic, others wanted to do their own thing. Overall, it was a great experience for students to work collaboratively and not get too attached to the artwork.
We’ve been getting a bit wild in the art room lately! The Grade 5/6s have been focusing on the book I ain’t gonna paint no more! By Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow, by using it as a springboard for rich discussions regarding contemporary art, abstract art and using the human body as a canvas. Over three weeks, students have experimented with a variety of different mediums and colour to abstract portraits from unknown artists. Here are few snaps of their developmental artworks from the past few weeks. Stay tuned for Part 2: abstracting their own photographic self-portraits.