Hens and Roosters Paintings

Love these - a Deep Space Sparkle lesson that I purchased ages ago yet had never used.  Our own chickens even came out and acted as models whilst we were doing this lesson.  Although the lesson plan was for Grade 6, I'm very happy with the results from my mixed age classes (Grade 1 to Grade 5).  We completed these chickens in one lesson (approx 1 hour) with some children even having time to complete another painting.

Cheers
Fiona

Herve Tullet "Field of Flowers" Group Paintings

I'm loving the book "Art workshops for Children" by Herve Tullet.  If you think you have heard that name before, Herve wrote the book "Mix it up" which I did a lesson on last year (yet never wrote a post about it oops).

For our first lesson of Term 2, we had a big Painting Party, started by a group artwork following the directions in Herve's book for a field of flowers group painting.  This is a lot like doing a circle painting (which I love and have done several of these during class, at the school and at parties) however the children are given directions as you go.  It all can become a bit frenzied which the kids loved (one direction is to drop your paintbrush from a height to make a splotch).  As they worked the directions got faster and faster.

We painted these on some plywood at an outside table.  It was lots of fun!  Afterwards we went inside, played more painting games and painted to music.  I let the children use paint in any fashion they wanted (lots chose to finger paint - you are never too old!).

What a wonderful messy painting party it was!

Cheers
Fiona

Wire Sculptures

I've been wanting to so some wire sculptures for a while now.  Its a medium we haven't really used much up until now (not counting pipe cleaners which we use quite often). I was inspired by this post on Babble Dabble Do (thank you Ana - love what you do!) and interestingly even though I gave the kids lots of options most wanted to do their sculptures this way.

First we looked at three wire artists:

• Alexander Calder
• Gavin Worth
• Ivan Lovett

(check out my artist of the week page)

I put out the following materials:

• Wood blocks (from the op shop and donated)
• Corks (donated)
• Rainbow florist wire
• Pipe cleaners
• Normal wire from the hardware store
• Beads (bought and donated)

How to:
I then let the children choose how they wished to use the wire and beads. I like to give a lot of free choice in my classes and just provide the materials and see what the children create with them...I'm just there to guide them if they get stuck or need help to make their idea come to life..

Most made sculptures using the wooden blocks, however a few had a go at making other sculptures.  I had a drill out that only I used.  This was used to drill holes to insert the wire into the wooden blocks (we also added a little glue from the glue gun to keep it in place).  I tend to let the children in Grade 5 use the glue gun yet for the younger children I did it for them.

Loving the results:

Cheers
Fiona

Mother's Day Presents 2016

OK I got a bit stuck with Mother's Day presents this year as we made some fab ceramic pendants yet I didn't get them fired in time.  So we went for my back up plan...

Homemade Terrariums with Homemade Polymer Clay Additions

I do love these and they are very easy to make!  Use one IKEA glass.  Just add pebbles (I love the silver ones I found) then a bit of charcoal and a bit of potting mix (I use specifically for succulents), add the plants (I just used succulent cuttings I got from my parents house - a v cheap option), a bit more gravel (optional) a few polymer clay additions and there you have it..... a super cool homemade terrarium..

 
Wire Ornaments with Homemade Polymer Clay Beads
Whist we were making our terrarium additions we also made some homemade polymer clay beads.  We threaded these onto some florist wire, added a few other beads and there you have it.....a super cool homemade beaded hanging ornament...

Watercolour Flowers Paintings 
Not all - yet some of the children also managed to produce a watercolour flowers painting for their mums... I forgot to photograph nearly all of them.  They could either produce flowers by themselves, flowers in a bunch or flowers in a vase....Here is one that I managed to capture for my Instagram account...

Have a wonderful Mother's Day everyone! 

Cheers
Fiona