Year 4

Exploring Media

We love to mix media and try out different processes at Kellett so that we have plenty of ideas to use when we plan our own pieces. This piece of work has lots of different materials and we've layered them into something with, ink work, screen printing, drawing and painting. See if you can find all these processes in these Georgian-style balloons!

Exploring Acrylic Paint

It's time to see what acrylic is capable of for Y4. Our focus was on creating texture, so we added in other materials, we worked in impasto layers, we scraped into it for different effects. To make things a little more interesting we also mixed tones of one colour for these fabulous landscapes. 

Endangered Animals - Finished

Take a look at our endangered animals. We used a printed background for a simple environment and researched and drew our animals in a stylized way for the Y4 environment exhibition.

Endangered Animals - the Y4 Exhibition

Our latest project is tied in with our classroom learning. We have printed backgrounds and chosen and researched an endangered animal to showcase. We are learning to stylize and create them as an open composition line drawing over the print, and will tie them all together with some special techniques next week.

Invader Mosaics

What a perfect project we are working on this week in Y4. We have spent time looking at the work of Invader, a street artist. Invader works all around the world and his signature is creating mosaics which represent icons from childhoos. He has these space invaders, cartoon characters and even famous story and art characters all over the world, all in this incredible pixel form that you get from using small, square tiles.  We started by designing our own on a grid, thinking about video games, movies and cartoons. Once we had planned and counted colours we went to the "tile buffet" set up in the art room and filled our wooden trays with colour. Then it was time to arrange them all! We started gluing this lesson and a few fast finishers even got to the grouting stage. They are already looking incredible!

Magical Monsters fresh from the kiln

Here they are! Our wonderful work is ready, shiny and finished.  All the chemical processes of making ceramics are the most exciting thing - we learn about these changes every time we make something from clay. It's time to take these incredible monsters to their new homes.

An Incredible Day Out. 

Our first art trip in forever has finally taken place! Year 4 packed up their art materials, sketch books and snacks (of course! ) and we took the school bus up to Tai Po Market, to explore the Railway Museum. We wanted to get into the idea of urban sketching and also to take a look at the PERSPECTIVE there.  This is really easy to see on trains and tracks, and means the way they  seem to get smaller in the distance. What a glorious day! We could look at the trees, silhouetted against a bright blue sky. The trains were shiny and all diffeerent colours. We were even allowed to sit and sketch in first class! Each student painted a postcard, as well as lots of sketches in their books and we will show you some of our work when we are back in the studio next week. Look at the adults all joining in too!

Our monsters are ready to be fired!

Look at these! We are longing to see their shiny fabulous selves once the kiln has done its job. Check back soon to see how they all turn out. 

Back to a new term and glazing our monsters!

Our monsters are out, ready for action and being glazed. We have got our sketchbooks back out to see and maybe to adapt our original designs. Our layers of glaze will melt and harden into a shiny layer of glass, protecting our art work and showing our creative skills. 

Christmas Creations from Y4

While our monsters were cooking in the kiln we segued into another sculpture project to mark the festive season! We created basic shape trees which we decorated and made into 3D sculptures. They are so sweet and it was such a fun morning. We can't WAIT to take these home and gift them to our families!

Ms. Spizz's favourite Project! (yes, she does say that a lot...)

I do say that a lot but honestly- who can beat designing and making their very own monster from clay?! We start with the principles of design and learn that a good design means that anyone could pick up your work and create from the design. This means revision of all our clay techniques and considering how our monster can be made. Pinch pot, slab, coiling, hollowing, joins? So many techniques to think about! Then we start to draw and explain our ideas from different angles. Not til the point when Ms. Spizzirri says that it's ready to be made are we allowed to get our hands dirty. Wait for next week to see us start with the clay!

Our own Eleanor McColl squares

We used El's ideas to design and create these tiles which we are carefully painting in bright acrylics. We are painting on wood and layering for bright colours and contrasts! Our own ideas are being turned into abstract symbols and lines and shapes of Hong Kong.

 We started this week with our amazing artist in residence. After looking at her own art and learning to think in the abstract about the things which inspire us about Hong Kong, we started sketching out the bold "slices" of our ideas. We split our time between the classroom and the art studio which has been set up in the atrium and things are starting to take shape!