Term 6 Week 4

June 28, 2019July 8, 2019Leave a comment

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists discussed the work of sculptor Rachel Beach (see examples). We talked about her use of geometric shapes and bright colours, and how we could see lots of straight lines and angles. We painted pieces of wood and arranged them into 2D versions of her sculptures. Next week we’ll glue the pieces down to finish.

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists worked on creating some fabulous papier mache bunnies! We started with a plastic bottle, and made a head by scrunching up a ball of newspaper. We fixed pie cleaners on for the ears, and then covered it all in strips of newspaper dipped in diluted PVA glue. Next week we’ll paint them!

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists were inspired by the beautiful installations of Japanese artist Jacob Hashimoto (see photos). We created our own versions using willow withies and wet strength tissue paper. Next week we’ll add coloured patterns!

Term 6 Week 3

June 21, 2019June 25, 2019Leave a comment

Maroon & Turquoise Class

This week, our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists created two different kinds of sculptures using cardboard cylinders! We cut slots into toilet roll tubes and painted them bright colours before leaving them to dry. We then spent some time gluing strips of corrugated card into rings and attaching them together using glue guns. We created some interesting shapes using this method! After that, we slotted the dried toilet roll tubes together to form towers which were inspired by the buildings of Hundertwasser (see example).

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Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists painted their ceramic tiles that we made last week, inspired by the work of Hilke Macintyre. We used fluorescent paint to make the features really stand out!

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists used acrylic paint to decorate their ceramic shoes inspired by artist Diane Rojas. They looked fabulous!

Term 6 Week 2

June 15, 2019Leave a comment

This week, each class worked with clay!

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists learnt about Anthony Gormley’s ‘Field For The British Isles’ (see photo). We found out that the installation includes 40,000 handmade clay figures, made by 100 volunteers over the course of one week! We used terracotta clay to create our own figures to arrange into a miniature version. The two classes made around 170 figures between them!

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Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists discussed the ceramic work of Hilke MacIntyre. We spotted recurring elements in her work such as trees, flowers, figures, animals and weather. We learnt how to create a clay slab, then build an image from clay, making sure we stuck it down firmly using the score and slip technique.

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists looked at the work of New York based artist Diana Rojas, who makes oversized ceramic versions of designer shoes. We used air drying clay to produce our own versions, referring to our own shoes as a starting point. We then added embellishments!

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Cyan & Indigo Class

Our Key Stage 3 and 4 artists have been working on a stencil printmaking project for the last two weeks. We were inspired by the work of British designer Marcus Walters (example below). We sketched a geometric design based on his work, and thought about how we could split it into three layers in order to create three separate stencils. We cut the stencils using a craft knife, then applied paint using sponges. We got some lovely results!

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Term 6 Week 1

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019Leave a comment

We’re into the final term of the school year! Term 6 at Art Stars will focus on sculpture. We’ll be working with a variety of media including plaster, cardboard, clay, willow and wood to create some three dimensional masterpieces!

This week each class created a relief sculpture from card, inspired by the work of Frank Stella (see examples). We discussed his work, talking about the different colours, shapes and textures we could see. We cut shapes from card, adding interest to them using a variety of media. We played about with composition until we were happy with our pieces, and then we experimented with different ways in which to add a 3D element to our work.

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Jade & Emerald Class

Term 5 Week 5

May 24, 2019Leave a comment

This week we worked on a typography project!

Maroon and Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists investigated different forms of hand lettering and practised writing the initial of their name in a variety of ways. We then produced our initial as a layered collage, incorporating patterns made using Posca pens. The results looked great!

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists created a typographical design using their names. We practised writing our names in different styles, inspired by examples of hand lettering. We drew some wavy lines across our page, then fit our names between the lines to create an interesting layout. We went over the pencil lines in marker pen before adding Brusho colour. The designs were really colourful!

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists spent some time finishing their mythical creatures from last week. We used soft pastel, blending colours together to create different textures.

We then created a piece of typography work- some of us chose to work with a list of friends, and others chose words that described us or inspired us.

Cyan & Indigo Class

Our year 7-11 artists completed their lino printmaking project this week. We continued with our experiments in colour, and also tried reduction printing, where areas of the printing plate are taken out and another layer of ink printed over the top of the first layer. The results looked lovely!

Term 5 Week 4

May 17, 2019May 24, 2019Leave a comment

This week we worked on drawing from our imaginations!

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists became illustrators! We read a poem about a monster called The Hippocrump, and imagined what we thought the Hippocrump would look like. We used clues from the poem and our own ideas to illustrate a scene in oil pastel, pencil and watercolour.

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists created bear characters! We warmed up by practising different facial expressions in our sketchbooks, and chose which one we’d like to use for our drawing. We created the fur textures using tiny lines and dots, which looked really effective. we then decorated the bears’ jumpers using patterns and colours. The bears looked great on their colourful backgrounds!

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists used the pastel techniques we were working on last week to develop their own mythical creatures. We warmed up by combining body parts from three different animals together to form a hybrid, which gave us some ideas for our own invented beasts. We will be continuing with our creations next week!

Cyan & Indigo Class

Our year 7-11 artists continued with their lino printmaking project. We tried some prints with single colours and some using a combination of colours. We got some lovely results!

Term 5 Week 3

May 10, 2019May 19, 2019Leave a comment

This week, our classes worked with soft pastel to create some animal drawings!

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists warmed up by using soft pastels to represent different textures in their sketch books. We looked closely at some feathers and talked about the textures we could see and feel. We then created large scale pastel drawings of owls, using photographic reference as a starting point and thinking about the different mark making techniques we could use. We got some lovely results!

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists experimented with mark making for texture too, and created colourful cockerels!

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists created dragons’ eyes! We warmed up by following a step by step drawing in our sketchbooks, then adapted the drawing using visual reference and our own imaginations. The results were really effective!

Term 5 Week 2

May 5, 2019Leave a comment

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists thought about how to show emotion through the lines and marks we made. We suggested different emotions and thought about what that emotion feels like, and how we might represent them visually through our choice of colours and the movements we made with the pens. We then created ’emotion portraits’, filling our faces with marks and lines in oil pastel to represent how we’ve felt at different points in the day. We added watercolour to complete our images.

Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists explored the concept of representing emotion through markmaking too. We warmed up in our sketch books, imagining how different emotions could be expressed though lines and colours. We produced portraits to represent the emotions we might feel and how these emotions are often interwoven and can get quite complicated.

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists represented the concept of self in a different way. We investigated the work of New York based Pop Artist Keith Haring, discussing his use of symbols and how we could use similar motifs to represent different aspects of our lives and personalities. We also looked at examples of zentangles. We drew around our shadow silhouettes onto paper then filled the outline with patterns and symbols to denote our thoughts, feelings and actions.

Cyan & Indigo Class

Our Key Stage 3 and 4 artists started a lino printmaking project this week. We looked at examples of lino prints by Carry Akroyd (see examples), based on fenland scenes, and used these as inspiration for our own designs. We then used cutting tools to start to cut our designs into the surface of the lino.

Term 5 Week 1

April 26, 2019May 5, 2019Leave a comment

This term the focus for our reception to year 6 classes is on drawing! Here’s what we’ve been up to in the first week…

Maroon & Turquoise Class

Our reception, year 1 and year 2 artists investigated cave paintings this week. We practised different techniques using charcoal, which would have been one of the materials available to early artists. We replicated the hand art seen on cave walls by placing our hands onto the paper and smudging charcoal around them. We made the paper have a more cave-like texture by crumpling it up before we worked! We then drew cave art style representations of animals and people, and thought about the stories our pictures were portraying.

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Amber, Magenta & Violet Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists worked on a series of exercises to help them to focus on looking closely at objects and drawing them accurately. We looked at our chosen objects for 30 seconds before hiding them and drawing them from memory. We then repeated the task, this time looking at the objects for one minute and concentrating on the shapes, lines and forms we could see before creating a more accurate drawing from memory. We completed some contour drawings of the objects then produced our final drawings, building on the skills we’d practised.

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists worked on developing their observational skills too. We followed similar tasks to those done by the year 3 and 4 groups as a warm up, then spent the second half of the session working on our final drawings. As well as aiming to reproduce the shape accurately, we considered texture, tone and light source in our drawings.

Term 4 Week 6

April 5, 2019April 11, 2019Leave a comment

Maroon & Turquoise Class

This week, our reception, year 1 and year 2 students had a go at monoprinting! We covered boards in tin foil, brushed them with ready mixed paint, then used a cotton bud to draw a design into the surface of the paint. We laid a piece of paper over the top to create a print.

Amber, Magenta & Turquoise Class

Our year 3 and 4 artists printed their polystyrene tiles produced last week, which were inspired by Islamic tile designs. We practised printing them in a radial pattern, then created a colourful background for our final design using soft pastels.

Jade & Emerald Class

Our year 5 and 6 artists worked on their polystyrene tiles from last week, taking out more of the design, before printing the second and third layers of their reduction block print. The results looked really effective!