Geometric Animal Sculptures

Inspiration: Claes Oldenburg's 'Geometric Mouse' sculpture.

To help them understand the difference between organic and geometric shape, these grade 7 students were asked to create a free standing cardboard sculpture of an animal of their choice using repetition of only one geometric shape. The decoration of their sculpture also needed to echo their chosen shape. This project really got them thinking and the results were amazing.

Willow Pattern Paper Plates

My mum has always had a large Willow Pattern collection and the images have fascinated me for a long time. This lesson is inspired by her collection and this Willow Pattern plate activity at Activity Village.

My grade 5 students first read the Willow Pattern story, viewed pieces of Willow Pattern china and then chose their own part of the story to illustrate. Their designs were transferred to paper plates and painted using fine brushes. Students had to create tints and shades to mix their own different shades of blue for painting. 

There is a very cute little youtube video of The Willow Pattern Story, also illustrated by children here. There is also a children's book called The Willow Pattern Story by Allan Drummond which I haven't read but looks like a great resource for this project.

 

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Aboriginal Style Paintings

Each student used a piece of brown paper to represent the rocks and natural materials used in indigenous cave art.

Students placed one of their hands on the page and used white paint to dab around the outline of their hand and repeated three or four times. The idea was to use a fairly dry brush to create a soft look to the outline.They then used the brush handle to create a dot painting pattern which followed outline of their hand prints.

Bushfire Paintings

Bushfire photo from sosnews.org

The students came back to school from holidays the same week as the Black Saturday Bushfires.
The newspapers were full of horrific but beautiful photos of burning fires. The school was raising money for the victims of the fires and these paintings by grade 5 students helped to raise awareness when displayed around the school.

The activity is inspired by an activity in this book which has a lot of great activities.

The background was created with a wash of red, orange and yellow edicol dyes. A thick line of black drawing ink was then painted across the bottom of the page and a few thick wet blobs of ink were added along the line. Students then used a short length of straw to blow the wet ink into spidery tree patterns. Each student's results were different but all were proud of their work.

Lino Printed Trees

Inspiration: The fantastic trees around the school.

Strictly speaking these are not lino prints but were made from pieces of vinyl, which are softer and easier for the kids to carve.
This group of grade 4 and 5 students made several small drawings of the trees around the school (good opportunity to get out of the classroom for some plein air drawing!)

After looking at other artist's lino prints and discussing the process, the students had to choose a drawing that they felt would work best as a print. The drawing was transferred to a vinyl square and (following many safety discussions and demonstrations!) students carved out the negative areas of the block. They then used black printing ink to make several prints from their block.

Famous Landmarks Paintings

Inspiration: National Geographic


 These Grade Fours were each researching a famous landmark for a class project.I had a packet of National Geographic cards of famous landmarks and gave each student a different card. Each card has a photograph of the place or landmark and features basic information on the back of the card. The students then had to replicate the picture on the card as accurately as they could, first drawing and then painting their landmark.

Tiger Masks

Inspiration: The Year of the Tiger, Tigers and masquerade masks!

To celebrate the beginning of Chinese New Year, I had my grade 1 students make masquerade style masks for 2010 Year of the Tiger. They are basically  paper plates with embellishments but looked quite effective. Each of my little tiger cubs looked different, which was nice.

Shadow Puppets

Yeti shadow puppet by Owly.

This lesson was inspired by these awesome shadow puppets - owlyshadowpuppets.etsy.com which I showed the students to help them with their ideas.

Grade 6 students made these shadow puppets from thick cardboard and split pins (they really moved!) based on their own designs of mythical creatures. They took a bit of work and by the time we finished them there was no time for a puppet show :(.  But, they were so cool! and I think it really helped them understand positive and negative space.

Chinese Style Fans

Inspiration: Chinese style paper fans.

A few years ago my grade 3 students made these Chinese style fans to celebrate Chinese New Year. Each student decorated a very long strip of paper with a Chinese inspired design of their choice. They then had to concertina fold the entire strip and secure the ends to a handle we made from pop sticks.
The idea came from this site, which gives you more details about construction.
www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese_fan_craft.htm