Oil Pastel Suns

Inspired by the Aztec Suns from Mrs VandenBush's art class blog, we created colourful and unique sun artworks in Springwood Art Class today. This class is also an exploration of warm and cool colours. We started by drawing the two-perspective face of the sun in lead pencil and then choosing one warm colour and one cool colour oil pastel. 

Oil pastel provides thick painterly coverage and looks wonderful blended (see the red/orange/yellow part of the sun in the artwork above). I like to have baby wipes on hand so students can periodically wipe their hands as they get messy. This also avoids accidental smudges on their work.

3D Tree Collages

This class was a twist on traditional collage artwork...first we drew magical trees in texta on paper, and then added cool 3D leaves - some popping out with a paper spring or clever paper folding. 

The final work is a collage that pops off the page.

I love the beautiful colours and shapes!

Fabric Painting

Here is a small selection of beautiful cotton coin purses hand painted today by students at Springwood Art Class. Students drew a selection of designs on paper first and then chose their favourite for the purse. 

We used fabric paint textas, which allow for precision in designs. Considering we only have an hour together in class, the textas are easier and a lot less messy for the kids to use than fabric paint. It's best to iron the fabric after painting it, to set the design. 

Clay Dragons!

The following photos are of the beautifully creative dragons made during my two clay school holiday classes over the last couple of days (at Blaxland and Katoomba Libraries). The ages of these artists ranged from 6 - 12 yrs, and I'm amazed at how unique every single dragon had turned out! 

Using air-drying paper clay, we first discussed dragon legends from different cultures around the world, and looked at a lot of dragon examples before diving in and having fun with clay!

Great work everyone!!

 

Artwork Submission

Below is a beautiful artwork submitted to the blog by Stephanie, a young student in my art class. I love her use of rainbow throughout, it's such a happy image. Thank you very much Stephanie!

Alexander Calder Paper Sculptures

Alexander Calder Black Beast [maquette], 1939
Image sourced from: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/alexander-calder-black-beast-maquette

Inspired by Alexander Calder sculptures, we made small paper versions and created a sculpture park of our own.

What you need:
*Images of Alexander Calder sculptures for inspiration
*Interesting coloured paper and yardstick
*Sticky tape
*Stapler
*Scissors
*Textas/pens/pencils (for decoration)

Matisse Collages

Sorrows of the King by Henri Matisse, 1952

Inspired by the beautiful paper cutout collages of French artist Matisse (1869 - 1954), we created our our collages today using common motifs of the artist - musical instruments, leaves and flowers, bodies and geometry in movement.  

Have a look at the wonderful results:

This is a quick and easy class, most kids finished within 30 mins and started a new project!