Scratch - Art Action Animals

Toby E

Hannah Y

Scratch-Art Action Animals - We loved this!! Although some of the kids had doubts when it came to covering their entire picture with black oil pastel, it was a real 'wow!' moment as we scratched it away to reveal the picture beneath!

'Action Animals' are drawn with thick black marker on 120gsm paper, using large flat shapes and little or no detail. Then the entire page is coloured heavily with crayon or oil pastel, taking care to leave no white areas, and using light bright colours that contrast well with the black. I also encourage students to use multiple colours in each flat area. Then a coat of solid black goes over everything.
The black is scratched away, revealing the colours and line drawing beneath.

Adapted from this lesson at Art Projects for Kids :)

Amazing Idea Machines Inspired by Souther Salazar

Abbey's Idea Machine

Talia's Idea Machine

For me, the best thing about blogging is the ideas so generously shared. I found this Souther Salazar inspired idea at shine brite zamorano...

We watched this time-lapse Youtube video of the artist creating his installation 'Alejandro's Idea Machine'. It finishes with a pan around some of the marvellous detail in the piece.

We also looked at some of his drawings, again noting the detail and free-flowing line work, before completing our own Idea Machine drawings using black marker and white chinagraph pencil on coloured paper.

Souther Salazar: Alejandro and the Idea Machine

Coral Reef Fish ~ Version 2

Here's another version of our Great Barrier Reef pictures inspired by Sandra Silberzweig. This time we used fluoro oil pastels and fluoro paints to create a water-colour resist coral reef background. We finished with fish cut from black paper, cutting out shapes inside the fish to allow the background colour and pattern to show through.

Mysterious Mansions in Silhouette

We drew our mansions with black permanent marker on paper spritzed with watercolour. We used basic shapes (squares and rectangles) for the body of the house, which many chose to bend and distort into interesting positions. Then we added different shaped roofs and other architectural features such as widow's walks, differently shaped windows, doors, verandahs and chimneys.

Although this is NOT a 'Halloween' picture, some of the children chose to include ghosts, bats and other 'spooky' images into their drawings.

The walls of our buildings were then coloured with solid black marker to create a silhouette, and we finished with yellow colour-stick in the windows for extra atmosphere and glow.

I love the contrast between the bright watercolour, detailed line drawing and the solid black of the silhouetted buildings. This project was heavily influenced by a great lesson I saw over at Mrs Picasso's Art Room - we had lots of fun with it :)

Silberzweig Inspired Reef Fish

Tasman S

Living on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, we have a number of coral reef islands on our door step. When I saw 'Sapphire Coral Fish' by Canadian artist Sandra Silberzweig, I knew that this would be a beautiful inspiration for a reef-themed picture. We started with a discussion about Sandra's use of bright colours, black outlines and pattern.

Molly B

Luka M

We created our own Reef Fish pictures using cut paper, fluoro paint and oil pastel. This project was such a lot of fun to do, and they are all beautiful! 

'Sapphire Coral Fish' - Sandra Silberzweig.

Clay Snowmen ....

Pottery - Our favourite lesson of the term! This week we've made clay snowmen. A bit early for Christmas, but by the time I get them dried, fired and back to the schools for painting it will be close to the end of term.

We started with a pinch pot base, then joined on a solid head and added coil scarf, hat and nose before using a skewer to add facial features.

The last step was the brain surgery, necessary to allow air into the solid head for even drying.

A great project for practising our score and slip joining.... it will be interesting to see how many come back from the firing with all the bits still in place :)

Smurfs 'n' Snails.... Viewfinder Movies in Soft Pastel

We used viewfinders to select individual compositions from promotional photos of the Smurfs 2 and Turbo movies, and finished with soft pastel.The tricky part was enlarging the viewfinder selection to fill our whole page! Thanks Ruby and Oscar for sharing your work :)