Howard Hodgkins and the Abstract Expressionists

Y1 have been mixing media and techniques as we look at the art of the abstract expressionists. We've tried several layers and techniques as we have painted our feelings without the pressure of having them become anything real or recognisable. A joyous exploration of layered colours and materials!

Working in 3D - Dinosaur sculptures!

We are learning to connect and construct with new materials this week. We have built a dinosaur foot from cardboard and newspaper and are using mod roc to make it smooth and textured with interesting shapes and lumps and bumps and a few spikes! It's all new skills and Y1 have really impresssed with their management of materials. 

Cassie Byrnes, Printmaker

Cassie Byrnes is an Australian printmaker and textile designer. Inspired by her fruit prints, Y1 got their first taste of Screen Printing. We pulled these lovely fruit starter layers. Next week when they are dry we will hand paint the leaves and details.While we waited to use the printing station, we were learning to draw and paint fruit and vegetable still lifes. Such a lot of learning!

The Elephants are finished!

Some very happy faces - with their first clay pieces. Bravo, Year One! These are amazing!

The Elephants of ART - glazing our clay

Our elephants are back in the art studio, a little smaller, a lot more hard and a lot whiter! It's time to glaze and we are learning so many new things - layering, what glaze is made from, areas we cannot glaze, how to make transitions between areas of different colour. They are all designed by us.These are going to be wonderful.

The Elephants of ART - Part 2

Once we had learnt all the excitement of the 6 first important words from George, the art elephant, it was time to get to grips with the final one - FORM. This means something that is 3D or looks like it is 3D. We are making slumped bowls, and creating them in the shape of elephants. We are using all new skills! Slab rolling, templates, slumping, imprint and relief. Take a look at these unique pieces, on the way to be fired.

The Elephants of ART!

It's a very long story but in Y1, we heard the tale of some very cultured elephants who love to visit art galleries and were appalled to hear the humans' lack of vocabulary when it came to talking about art. Our elephants taught the humans an important group of art words which we learned today too! Here we are, decorating our elephants and practicing our new vocabulary. We moved around the studio and everyone learned to create a little bit of line, shape, colour, value, texture and space. George the Elephant even came along to help us. Can you see him in the pictures? He even told us all that we have one more special word to learn about and we are trying to find out what it is!

Beautiful Chinese New Year Drawing and Collage

Our fabulous pieces to celebrate Lunar New Year are all set to go on display to cheer us all up around Kellett. Look at our beautiful work! So much progress is being seen in Y1 this year.

Mixing Media for Chinese New Year

Celebrations for our next holiday have already begun and we are creating lovely blossom vases for Chinese New Year. Look at our drawing and collage work!

Printing our Collagraphs

This week our beautiful print blocks are all ready and we have had a fabulous week learning to roll a tacky print tray, to apply even layers of ink, and to print them! It's a lot of learning - making sure we get the corners, don't move the paper and putting good pressure onto the back. of the paper to pick up the ink. What do you think?

Exploring Printmaking

In year one we have been exploring printmaking by making our own collagraphs. We used foam shapes and cut and planned compositions which we found interesting. We stuck them down firmlo with PVA glue. COllagraphs need to have all the parts at the same height so we used the glue carefully...

All about Skin Tones

The last lessons have been spent learning about proportion and colour. These important artistic skills translate in Y1 as - where are my eyes and what colour skin do I have?!? You would be very surprised how many Y1s honestly believe that their eyes are in the top of their forehead and their ears are too, and we are trying very hard to work out where those body parts really go! Nobody wants to look like an alien or a teddy bear. Using our sketchbooks to record our learning we first sketched our own faces without any instructions and then, after a lesson looking at facial proportions we tried again, with our new knowledge. We then went on to create skin tones for our final pieces of work. Next week we will add all our facial features - hopefully we can remember where they go! 

Messy Backgrounds

We love using techniques in the art studio to teach routine to the younger classes. In this simple lesson we have learned to create a background, warm and cool colours, blending and layering.

 We started our year by reading this wonderful book by Peter H Reynolds. Vashti is a reluctant artist who learns that everything starts by putting your paintbrush to paper and that wonderful things grow from that first mark. Our Y1 students painted and pastelled and created many lovely dots of their own.