Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Spring has Sprung !

As you can see at the Wonderful Grade Level Music shares this week, your children's artwork lit up the entrance way to our seating !!!! Showing LP parents Teachers and students that Artistically Spring has Sprung !!!

R2 Artistes....

Continue forth their look at the Hong Kong environment and all manner of local Temples.Using temple images from around Hong Kong, students have been looking for detail and symmetry, take a peek....
Starting with temple doorways, and the prayers and blessings that are found on each side of the doorway.
As you can see this was perfect job for busy fingers...
Placing pieces carefully
Glueing things in place
Cutting things to size and making some very tiny pieces
       Making sure everything is secure
          Some very careful looking took place....
The temples are amazing and we haven't finished yet! Watch this space !

Grade One Artist-Scientists

As described last month your Grade One children are currently studying Life cycles in the classroom. In art we have taken a Big Picture approach to this project and having established exactly what a " cycle" is we are looking at the giant cycles that govern our daily lives.

Ask your children what a cycle is............
Check out this website with your children:

As you can see we are creating a on a circular surface and have used our "cycling" arms to set the scene for the solar system. 
We then went on to study each planet and your children told us that there are:
four Rocky planets ( ask your children what those are)
and four Gas Giants( ask your children what these are)

We looked at the sizes and features of each planet and then set out to create the right scale of each one using our junk circles.

Then we studied the features and colours, learning how to mix watercolours to recreate the nuanced shades, the special role of Mr White, using Mr Brush Super Softly and allowing water to blend where needed.
Just look at those delicate hands and careful "looking".
Next we went on to cut our planets out and assemble these on our ready and waiting "Outer Space ".
Showing that the planets "cycle" around the sun. 
Earth is one of those planets....

Ask your children how long it takes for Earth to travel around the sun.

and.....we are not finished yet.....

Grade Two Observe and Create !

Now, are you wondering why the various teachers have all come into the art room for a lie down ...?
Well it is a tiring job.......but!
 They were doing this for the kids!
Your children thoroughly enjoyed this process!
Yes, grade two were working on a Life Drawing challenge!
This was part one of an Observational project where the Art of Drawing is  stripped right back and investigated through a few different projects.

This project began with the Question:
What is the difference between a picture and a sculpture ?

Your children told us some answers :
" A sculpture pops out and a picture is flat"
"  A picture is 2d and sculpture is 3d "
" You can feel a sculpture"
" A sculpture is made of clay or ice"
" A picture is a drawing but a sculpture is carved "

Then we looked at a picture of Miss Flowers and the "Real Life" sculpture of Miss Flowers from the front, the side, the back and the other side, asking the same basic question, which then led people to realise:

" Oh yes....a drawing is flat and you can only show one side of something but with a sculpture you can show all sides."

With that we introduced the concept of looking at something from all four sides and went to the drawing table where our models were waiting:
Then we used our Observational Protocols to work on sketches of our model from all four sides.( some students were definitely planning to come home and draw you !! I wonder if they did......)

Observational Protocols

1) Use Magic Finger to trace the model
2) Plan a starting point on the page
3) Use Magic finger to map out your sketch on your page
4) Start your outline with pencil
5) Soft whisper touch pencil

The learning that emerged was that everything can look completely different when viewed from a new perspective. Some perspectives are new and strange and require some new problem solving to start a drawing from an odd spot!
eg:
People did incredibly well and look at the results!
We concentrated on outlines rather than details so as to have time to work on a whole person.
This project aims to address the two main skills that a " Drawing Ninja" will build in order to become a great artist:

The ability to look and SEE
The ability to use a pencil skilfully

With that the next steps were finding out what our pencil can do for you :
How many shades of grey can we make?
 What tricks and techniques can we use to do that?
Ask your children what those tricks are
 We went to visit the Middle School sketches to see how many shades of grey could we see in peoples drawings

Gaining inspiration for our upcoming sketching jobs.
Continuing Pencil Ninja techniques we practices drawing to some music
Altering the pressure, direction and patterns, preparing for our next task...which is applying our pencil Ninja skills to a new drawing task.
 for the amazing Pencil Ninja Drawings to be completed.....watch this space!!!

Thats all from the artroom for this month, its been a busy time in here!
Do encourage your children to draw you, while your relaxing at home !!

Till Next Month
from

Miss Flowers and Miss Kirk
in the Artroom