Homemade Scratch Boards (and a comparison with store bought ones).....

Making your own scratch boards is lots to fun and much more economical than buying the store ones.  I also had some store bought ones in gold and silver and thought that this was a great chance to do a bit of a comparison (I just love a bit of an experiment).

Interestingly the children actually preferred using their homemade ones over the store bought ones.  They were much easier to scratch, yet probably won't last as long.  Next time we are going to try and make our own gold and silver ones.  Some of the younger kids just enjoyed scratching random patterns and the older kids enjoyed doing pictures.

What you need:

• Cardboard or thick paper
• Oil Pastels
• Black Paint
• Thick Paint Brush
• Wooden Skewers

How To:

• Show the children how to cover their piece of cardboard with oil pastels in patches or stripes.  Remind them to apply the oil pastel thickly so it covers all the white paper.
• Paint over the entire piece of cardboard with black paint
• Leave to dry (we left ours for a week)
• Scratch in your design with a bamboo skewer

The Results:

 Here are a few I captured on the way out....

Cheers

Fiona

Sun and Moon Pastels

Admittedly we actually did this lesson at the start of last term yet I never got around to posting it.  I usually have two pictures done each class (I have some very fast workers) so this was the second picture in the Ted Harrison Landscapes lesson - click here for these they turned out great!

These were a lot simpler and we just used black oil pastel instead of glue so they could be done in one lesson.

I can't remember where I saw the original idea for this yet there are quite a few examples on the internet - thanks everyone!

These were a really good warm up to our Picasso lesson where we drew Picasso faces and divided them in two.  I also used this lesson to remind them about the use of cool and warm colours.

Cheers
Fiona

Homemade Father's Day Presents

Since the Mum's got such nice gifts this year I thought it would be nice to recognize the great Dad's we have out there as well....

I was requested to do a matching Dad's portrait to our Mum's portraits so here they are.  What handsome Dad's they are....

Our lucky Dad's also received homemade key rings (baked polymer clay) and hand painted mugs (I used Monte Marte ceramic paints on IKEA mugs).

Once they had all been baked and laminated the kids wrapped them in brown paper and decorated the wrapping with stickers and textas.

Cheers
Fiona

International Dot Day........

Happy International Dot Day!

We celebrated in classes one week early due to us going on holidays.

I never miss an opportunity to read the inspirational book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds.

 

This year the children decorated Dots that I will put together into a Paper Dot Mobile / Garland to hang in the studio.  I will post a picture when its finished (after my holiday).

There are lots of creative things you can do to celebrate International Dot Day.  Check out the website by clicking here.

Celebrate Creativity,
Courage & Collaboration!

Dot Day September 15

Imagine the power and potential of a million people all around the world connecting, collaborating, creating and celebrating all that creativity inspires and invites. I hope you will join the growing global community of creativity champions using their talents, gifts and energy to move the world to a better place. Sign up now and celebrate Dot Day!
Peter H. Reynolds

Cheers
Fiona

Cardboard and Paper Masks (inspired by Kimmy Cantrell, Picasso & Eric Shaw)

 

We had a lot of fun with masks this lesson.  This lesson was inspired by this post on Mary Making - thanks! 

First we made cardboard masks out of some recycled cardboard boxes and decorated them with bits and pieces I had lying around and oil pastels.  We attached sticks to them to hold them up.  These were inspired by Eric Shaw's fun cardboard masks. 

Secondly we drew a Kimmy Cantrell / Picasso inspired mask with oil pastels, coloured it in, cut in out and stuck it on black paper.  These were inspired by the work of  Primary Seven Quarryhill.

For more information on Kimmy Cantrell, Eric Shaw and Picasso click here to go to my Artist of the Week page.

These masks were used for inspiration when we created ceramic masks the following lesson (post to come soon when they have been fired).

The Results:

Kimmy Cantrell / Picasso inspired Oil Pastel Masks

Eric Shaw inspired Cardboard Masks

Cheers
Fiona

Picasso inspired Faces

 
The thing I love about a Picasso lesson is that anything goes.  If the ear doesn't line up or the eyes don't match it doesn't matter - just say it's a Picasso.  This is a fun lesson as you just go with what happens and it really doesn't matter how the painting turns out.

With Picasso being such a famous artist I set up table easels around the room and encouraged the children to paint like a real artist, mixing colours on a palate, choosing their own size brushes and paints.  They were also responsible for completely cleaning up after themselves (I often let them get away without doing this...silly me...)

We started the lesson with a warm up exercise a "Roll a Picasso" - see the handout here.  I got them to move easels each time they rolled the dice so they were adding to someone else's picture. This gave them the opportunity to really loosen up and try new combinations of features on a face. If there were extra rolls of the dice before they got back to their spot I got them to add anything the picture needed (hair, hat, body, more eyes etc).

We then moved onto doing a practice Picasso face on a piece of paper and when this was complete they copied this onto a canvas board and painted.  I encouraged using watered down black paint for the outlines as the final step.

The Results:

Cheers
Fiona

Snow Men and Polar Bears

SNOW was our theme for the lesson a few weeks back.  Very appropriate as Melbourne had its coldest day in years and it snowed in some very unlikely places,  making the news.  So snow was on every ones mind and snow was a good thing to concentrate on in art.  Actually I had a few children missing as they were at the snow on holiday.... Of course in Australia doing a snow theme in July seems a bit weird as its kinda a Christmas theme yet it is the snow season here..

We started the lesson making our Snow Globes - click here for that post.

Then we moved onto Snow inspired paintings.  I took inspiration from Deep Space Sparkles post on 3/4 snow men and I got the idea for the polar bears from somewhere on the Internet yet can't remember where (please feel free to let me know if you come across it).  What I love about both these ideas is that they are close up and not of the whole subject.  I emphasised to the children that often you don't paint a whole object yet only some of it close up.

What you need:

• Tempera Paint Blocks
• A3 cartridge paper
• White Paint
• Cotton tips

How to:

• Demonstrate how to draw a close up Snowman and Polar Bear (I let the children choose which one to paint, some did one, some did both)
• Draw in pencil, rub out any lines you don't want
• Paint with Tempera paints
• Add snow with either fingertip or cotton tips
• Add texture to the polar bear by adding white with a fingertip

The Results:

SNOWMEN:

POLAR BEARS:

Cheers
Fiona