This week, our classes continued creating their Hundertwasser-inspired houses. We painted patterns and details similar to those used in Hundertwasser’s buildings, and invented some of our own too!
Our finished Hundertwasser village- we think they look fab!
This week, all of our students have been working on a collective project inspired by the architectural artwork of Austrian-born New Zealand artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We investigated some of his colourful painted buildings (see below), then began creating our own mini houses inspired by his work, using cardboard boxes and offcuts. Our individual houses will then come together to create one big building!
Our studio assistant, William the basset hound, also made an appearance this week- you can spot him in some of the photos!
Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists worked on their collaborative Chihuly inspired sculpture this week. We cut the painted plastic bottles into spirals, then each student used a glue gun to fix their bottle onto a board. We’ll be hanging it from the ceiling for our exhibition on 8th July!
We also watched a video about Chihuly’s expressive drawing style, for which he used up to 50 pencils at once, and then had a go ourselves. You can watch the video below.
Our year 3 and 4 artists finished off their Chihuly inspired bowls this week. We used a heat gun to melt the plastic into wavy shapes, emulating Chihuly’s glass bowl series. It was really fun to watch the plastic start to change form- we never quite knew what it was going to do so every bowl was a surprise!
Our year 5 and 6 artists continued with their Chihuly inspired sculptures. We cut the painted acetate sheets we prepared last week into different shapes, then threaded them onto a skewer. It was a very effective process- we got some beautiful results!
We had a visit from illustrator Craig Pattrick this week! Craig showed us lots of his development sketches and talked about the importance of perseverance when designing new characters. He also showed us some of his fantastic plasticine sculptures, and we had a go at making a Minion!
You can find out about Craig and his work on his website.
Our Silver Arts Award group have been working very hard on Unit 1 of the award over the last few months, planning and completing an arts challenge. We identified a challenge that appealed to everyone- to produce an illustrated poetry anthology as a group. This allowed us each to develop our personal skills in a chosen medium, whilst also working collaboratively to produce our anthology.
We would like to share our finished pages with you- we are really pleased with the result, and the printed version looks great!
We were excited to start the new term this week! We’ll be focusing on sculpture for the next few weeks, investigating various artists and using a variety of materials.
Our artist inspiration this week is American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Each class has been investigating his work and are producing their own artwork inspired by what we’ve seen.
You can find out more about Chihuly on his website, here.
Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists looked at Chihuly’s large scale installations. We are going to work on a collaborative sculpture, using plastic bottles to emulate the look of the glass in Chihuly’s designs. Each artist painted a bottle which we will transform into spirals next week- Amber class mixed reds and yellows, and Turquoise used yellows and blues.
Our year 3 and 4 artists looked at examples of Chihuly’s Macchia and Persians series. We are using plastic plates to create our own versions of Chihuly’s colourful asymmetric bowls. This week we used sharpies to draw patterns onto the bowls; next week we’ll be using heat to alter their shape!
Our year 5 and 6 artists investigated Chihuly’s Rotolo series, which features long, twisted glass forms. This week we painted sheets of acetate using acrylic paint, emulating the coloured glass in Chihuly’s work. Next week we’ll be cutting and arranging the acetate to create sculptures inspired by the Rotolo artwork.
Here’s what we’ve been up to in the final week of term. We’ve enjoyed trying out lots of different collage techniques and materials! Next term we’ll be focusing on sculpture.
Our reception, year 1 and year 2 classes became robot designers this week! We invented different kinds of robot by arranging pieces of cardboard onto a background. We painted the parts gold using acrylic paint. We then used a variety of metallic card shapes, washers and rivets to add detail to our collages. We added mechanical drawings in the background using metallic crayons. We got some great results!
Our year 3 and 4 artists built on their Picasso-inspired portrait work from last week. They started with an angled face shape, adding features cut from cardboard. They painted their portraits in acrylics, taking ideas from some of Picasso’s Cubist paintings. They also added some extra details using lolly sticks and pipe cleaners!
Our year 5 and 6 artists continued with their Matisse-inspired collages. Last week, following Matisse’s working processes, they painted sheets of paper using Gouache. This week, they cut organic shapes from the painted paper to create collages inspired by natural forms. They created some lovely designs!
This week our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists built nests! We talked about the purpose of nests and what they need to be able to provide for the eggs and the young birds. We discussed the properties of various materials, choosing hard, spiky materials for the outside of the nests for protection, and soft, warm materials for the interior. Our eggs looked very cosy!
Our year 3 and 4 artists investigated Cubism this week. We looked at examples of portraits by Pablo Picasso, noting his use of bright colours and how the features are often distorted. We collected together drawings of eyes, noses and mouths taken from some of Picasso’s paintings, then chose our favourites to assemble into a portrait of our own. We added colour using oil pastel and wax crayon.
This week our year 5 and 6 class investigated the collage work of Henri Matisse (see examples). Matisse was a prolific painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor, turning to his ‘cut-out’ technique later in life when age and mobility affected him. We learned about his process of cutting shapes from paper which had been painted with gouache by his studio assistants, and talked about the organic and geometric shapes we could see. We spent time preparing our own coloured papers, painting them with gouache and watercolour paint. We added some patterns and textures to our papers too.
Unfortunately Ellie forgot to take any photos as we were so engrossed in the task! We’ll get some next week 🙂
Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists investigated tessellation. We talked about which shapes tessellate and which don’t, and discussed examples of patterns made using different shapes. We looked at photos of honeycomb, then used hexagons to make our own tessellated patters inspired by the bees’ work. We also made some different designs using tangrams!
Our year 3 and 4 artists finished off their four week animal portrait project this week! We added white highlights to the animals’ faces, then coloured the eyes using acrylic paint. We were so pleased with our work!
Our year 5 and 6 artists continued with their typography project inspired by the work of New York based artist Peter Tunney. We arranged the letters of our chosen words onto the collaged background, fixing them in place with blu tack. We then painted over our designs using acrylics. Some students then took the stencils off to reveal the designs, while others have left them to dry until next week.
This week our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists worked on some collaged birds! We used black and white acrylic paint to create a textured background, scratching leaf patterns into it with the other end of our brushes. While the background dried, we produced a variety of bird characters using different coloured and patterned paper. We then arranged them onto the background. Our birds had real character!
Our year 3 and 4 artists continued with their large scale animal portrait project. This week we chose which animal we’d like to do and sketched it out in our sketchbooks. We familiarised ourself with using Indian ink, practising different kinds of lines that we could use to show our animal’s fur/feathers. Once we were confident with the ink, we drew out our animal onto our collaged background using charcoal then applied the ink.
Our year 5 and 6 artists investigated the work of New York based artist Peter Tunney (see examples). We collaged a background from newspaper, then chose a phrase to use for our own version of Tunney’s typographic posters. We printed our chosen phrase and cut the letters out to use as stencils. Next week we’ll be using the stencils with acrylic paint to add the phrase to our work.
Our reception, year 1 and year 2 students continued with their collage work inspired by Cornwall based artist Michèle Brown. We discussed the different shapes we could see in her work, drawing them in our sketchbooks to give us some ideas. We then cut similar shapes from the patterned and textured paper we made last week, arranging them onto our backgrounds in an interesting composition.
Our year 3 and 4 artists continued with their large scale collaged animal portraits. We tore the patterned and textured papers we made last week into strips and arranged them onto a sugar paper background. We covered our finished collages with a layer of PVA glue to make sure it was all stuck down securely. Next week we’ll be sketching ideas for the animals we’d like to portray.
Our year 5 and 6 artists investigated tesselation. We talked about which shapes would tesselate, and discussed examples of collaged artwork using different shapes (see examples). We practised sticking shapes precisely in our sketchbooks so that they fit together perfectly. We then cut shapes from magazines and worked on creating our own collages incorporating tesselation.
Artivity 