This week each class started a two-week mini project to illustrate a different scene. We wanted to combine the drawing techniques we’d been developing with some different skills to create a mixed media piece. Wednesday classes are working on scenes featuring hot air balloons, and Thursday classes are taking their inspiration from places in Cambridgeshire.

Turquoise Class

Turquoise class had a go at some marbling! We chose which colours we wanted to use before squeezing a few drops of the ink into a tray of water. We created swirly patterns by dragging the handle of a paintbrush through the inks, and then took prints from it. We’re going to be using the marbling as collage for our project.

Magenta Class

Magenta class had some fun drawing with their feet as a warm up activity. It was really tricky and we got some very funny results after lots of giggling! Our illustration is going to be of a hot air balloon flying over farm fields, so we spent this week creating a painted background to develop into a field pattern next week. We started by painting a strip of yellow across the end of our paper, then added a little blue before painting the second strip. We repeated this, adding more blue each time, until our paint had changed entirely to blue. While we were working on this, we discussed primary and secondary colours.

Violet Class

Violet class created some amazing detailed drawings of Peterborough Cathedral, using photos for reference. We talked about the different shapes and lines we could see in the building, and used our skills in showing tone and texture that we learned in previous lessons to add depth and interest to our drawings. The results were brilliant! Next week we’re going to be working on a background for our drawings.

Emerald Class

Emerald class took their inspiration from the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. Several of the class had visited with family or on school trips, and shared their experiences. We discussed photographs of several different types of aeroplane displayed at the museum, looking carefully at the shapes and details we could see. We then drew accurate illustrations of our chosen planes, using a light box to trace the outline onto heavy watercolour paper. We went over the outline in fine marker pens, adding extra details, before carefully adding watercolour to our drawings using very fine brushes.