Fun At the Ekka!

Last weekend was the final weekend of the Exhibition (aka the Ekka), the annual agricultural show that has become so much more .... wild rides, show bags, animal exhibitions, strawberry ice-creams, sideshow alley, fairy floss and dag-wood dogs, eating too much junk food and getting sick after a stomach clenching rollercoaster ride, spectacular fireworks etc etc

For some it is an amazing yearly fun fair, for others something to be avoided at all costs - whatever your opinion it has all the elements that kids love, especially the wild rides!

We started with a self portrait in black and white using thick and thin black markers. I encouraged the kids to think about facial expression to convey feeling, and to use a variety of line to create texture. Another topic of discussion was the use of diagonal line to convey liveliness and movement. I also encouraged them to draw directly with black markers, and I am really enjoying the spontaneous line work of their drawings, and the expressions on the faces!

We then used metallic markers to create a colourful background on black paper (the photos here do not do justice to the colours of the metallic markers!) We were especially trying to convey a sense of excitement and fun.

This has been one of our most effective pictures this term - I love the contrast of the black & white portraits against the explosively colourful backgrounds!

A Sunday Drive ....

We began by looking at some paintings by folk artist Jeanette Carlstrom, including 'House on the Hills' and (my favourite) 'Cats on a Stroll', especially noticing her use of colour, pattern and repetition. We also had some discussion about what we might see on a Sunday drive around our local area - including The Big Pineapple, strawberry farms, the ocean from the coast road (including dolphins, whales etc as this is whale migration season), Australia Zoo, the Ettamogah Pub and a host of other local landmarks.

We began by building a series of layered hills from the bottom of the page up. Over the hills we drew a winding road through the countryside that we filled with repetitive patterns.

After retracing all our lines in black marker we coloured all the solid shapes with wax crayon before painting the entire picture with watercolour.

I found it easiest with this particular project to set up a paint station for each colour, with the kids moving freely from colour to colour. This keeps the colours clean and makes cleaning up a breeze!

Thanks Amy at Artful Artsy Amy for her inspirational lesson idea :)

This painting was a lot of fun, and the students all did a fabulous job!

Folksy Birds - Paddy Art #4

Sally (our Pademelon Diversional Therapist) had a lot of old stamps and suggested that we might be able to use them in our art group.

I drew up some basic shape folk-art style birds on a couple of canvases, and the residents collaged the stamps all over them. This was actually quite a good sensory activity as they ended up with glue on their fingers which they rolled off by rubbing their fingers together.

Then it was a simple job for me to then paint in the background with off-white (although it appears quite grey in these photos), and add a black-glue outline to make the images 'pop'. I love the white-on-white texture that the painted-over stamps create around the edges of the birds.

I'm quite enjoying our collaborative projects - everyone can be involved to some extent... Some are very hands on, while for others it's an opportunity to sit around the table and enjoy the social atmosphere. Either way it's a way to create a moment of fun and meaningful interaction (and every one of those is so precious!)

Thanks Moonflitter Musing and Eva Crawford on Redbubble for your creations that inspired this project :)

Click here to see more of the art we have been creating at Pademelon (an aged care facility for people with dementia).

Wescoat Inspired Landscapes

Swirly trees with layers of black marker and soft pastel. Our landscapes are inspired by Gustav Klimt and Natasha Wescoat.

I love the freedom of line Ella has achieved in her picture above.

Andy Warhol Influenced Self-Portraits

Jasmine M

We used coloured highlighters to colour B&W photocopied photographs in the manner of Andy Warhol.
We created the background with rectangles of coloured paper glued onto a larger A4 coloured sheet.
The kids experimented with colour combinations, creating 6 different pictures of which they chose their favourite 4 to mount onto their backgrounds.

These were such a lot of fun to do - the kids love using the flourescent highlighters, and I love gently encouraging them away from the idea that colours have to be realistic!

Warhol: 'Marilyn' 1967

Minions, Minions Everywhere .....

Over the recent school break it seems that nearly all my kids saw (and loved!) the new Despicable Me 2 movie! So what better subject for a Pop Art-style painting?

We watched the Youtube 'Minions Banana Song', which the kids thought was hilarious...
(with a brief discussion along the lines of "of course WE know that hitting each other is not the way to solve a problem, but these Minions just don't know any better ..." :))



Then we planned out our composition, using milk bottle lids as a template for the eyes - this kept the minions large in the page. We went over all our lines with black oil pastel before painting with chromacryl paints.
Thanks Charlotte for sharing your great painting! Gotta love the Minions!!

Grumpy Cat Inspired Clay Sculptures

Our last clay project was a moulded slab bowl, and before that we made a snake coil pot, so it seemed time for a good-old non-functional sculpture. So following our oh-so-successful Grumpy Cat drawings last week (thanks again to Mary and Kathy), which the kids just loved! I decided to use Grumpy Cat to inspire our clay work this week.

We started with a block of clay shaped into a bullet form (I cut 18 blocks from a 12 kg block of red raku clay). From this we squeezed in the neck of our cats about a third of the way down and reshaped the body to smooth the transition from neck to body.

We then pulled clay up from the back of the cat's head, flattening it into a more cat-like shape, and used this clay to fashion two pointed ears.

After rolling 4 spheres of clay for the eyes and cheeks (and a very small ball for the nose), we used our thumbs to push eye sockets into the head of our cat. From there it was all about using the score-and-slip joining method to secure the eye balls into the eye sockets and the join the cheeks and nose to the cat's face.

We also used wooden skewers to push a point into each eye and whisker holes. This serves to not only delineate the eye and whiskers (we'll hot glue-gun in some wire whiskers after bisque firing), but also to allow air into the quite thick clay ball of the cat's head for more even drying (although red raku clay is pretty forgiving!)

Finally we attached a tail to curl around the cat's body, and after a bit of 'brain surgery' with a thick piece of dowel (to get air into our solid block of clay!) our cats are drying out before the bisque firing. More in a couple of weeks when we finish them off!!