Turquoise Class

This week in Turquoise class we were thinking about showing emotion and atmosphere in our drawings. We spent some time imagining how the sky would appear on a peaceful summer’s day, and considered what kind of marks we could make in charcoal to portray the feeling of calm and tranquility. We drew our summer skies across the top two thirds of our paper. We then thought about how a stormy sky would look, and how our mark making for this would contrast with our first pictures. We tried to put in more energy and more pressure on our charcoal in our second pictures to create a dramatic difference between the two.

After we’d compared our skies, we used our imaginations to draw a scene beneath each one, with the aim of using similar marks to those used in the skies.

Magenta Class

This week we finished off our collaged farm fields. We cut our painted papers from the last lesson into strips, and arranged them onto a piece of card to form a pattern. We glued them down with PVA. We then created hot air balloons using a similar collage technique.

 

Violet Class

In Violet class we learnt about proportions of a face. We practised in our sketchbooks, using guidelines to help us to position the facial features correctly, before sketching out a large version onto sugar paper. We discussed the use of colour in portraits by Fauvist artists such as André Derain, then used soft pastel to work on our own Fauvist portraits.

Emerald Class

Emerald class worked on portraits too. We warmed up by reminding ourselves of the proportions of a face, using guidelines to make mini portraits in our sketchbooks. We then discussed the work of British artist Frank Auerbach. We described his portraits as ‘creepy’, ‘unusual’and ‘unique’, and we considered how Auerbach’s use of tone creates a spooky atmosphere.

We then sketched out our portraits onto sugar paper, and began working into them with charcoal. We used the side of the charcoal to add tone and texture, and created highlights using chalk and erasers.We built our drawings up in layers, often going over the same area multiple times, to start to create a sense of depth. 

This week each class continued with their mini illustration project.

Turquoise Class

In Turquoise class we used the marbling patterns we made last week as collage material to create a fabulous patchwork hot air balloon. We chose a coloured background and then used fineliners to draw a patterned basket, complete with characters from our imaginations.

Magenta Class

We were all poorly this week! We’ll carry on with our mini projects next week instead.

Violet Class

Violet class made colourful and energetic abstract backgrounds for our Peterborough Cathedral illustrations by responding to music through our drawing. We started with oil pastels, allowing the music to inspire different lines and shapes, as if the oil pastels were dancing! After a while we repeated this using Brusho (a type of vibrant watercolour paint). The contrast between our charcoal cathedral drawings and the bright patterns behind creates a really striking effect.

 

Emerald Class

Emerald class worked on creating dramatic backgrounds for our detailed aeroplane drawings from last week. We used soft pastel to draw our skies, using photos as inspiration. We practised blending colours together to portray sunsets and wispy clouds.

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.