Now that our Summer Holidays are here I intend to use some of my photos from my travels as well as some new photos taken around Melbourne, Australia, in my blog posts. The cherubic mosaic face is from the Vatican City, Rome, while the pavement Art is from our trip to Venice, Italy, back in 2003. Many of our students don’t get the opportunity to visit Art Galleries so by adding such photos every few days I hope to at least cater for our students who are becoming regular blog visitors.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Amazing 6AK
Every now and then a class comes along with a great work ethic and a knack of getting along. Grade 6 AK was such a class. Added to that, their teacher, Angela, had high expectations of their behaviour and of their work. She would come and visit the class at pack up time and she showed a welcome interest in her students’ work. Unfortunately in some schools Specialist teachers are often made to feel like babysitters. I have found that in my 24 years of teaching Visual Arts there is a higher standard of work and behaviour achieved when the Class Teacher shows an appreciation and interest in the class outside their own room.Well Done Angela and 6AK.
Fun with Photos via Artweaver
Changing photos using free photo editing software is a lot of fun. Today I found a link to a list of free programs and I downloaded Artweaver. It’s simply described as a less complicated version of Photoshop and is a 6 Mb download. I played around with two of our mask photos. With apologies to Jennifer of 5DC I used her lion as a starting point and the “before” and “after” are featured here. I would enjoy receiving your version of the same lion at tlpsart@yahoo.com . I am imagining some great “photo as a starting point” lessons for our Grade 5 and 6 students in 2011.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo Lives On
Renaissance artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo died almost 500 years ago but his work lives on today. The students of Grade One and Two looked at his cheeky artworks which used images of fruit , vegetables, leaves. flowers etc to make a painted collages of faces. Sandy drew vegetables and painted them with Watercolour paints. There is a cheerful character in this work Sandy. Long live Arcimboldo.
Slimber drawing is Fun this Christmas
Slimber is a new Web drawing program that, like Drips, will bring lots of fun and “clean” drawing.When you go to the site click on Painter and set the size. I made mine 700 x 550. After briefly experimenting with the tools I quickly, and I’m stressing quickly, sketched out this Christmas tree. I was happy to then press the play button and watch the replay of the steps I’d taken. I hope you enjoy the process too.
Merry Christmas to All
As we get older the Christmas Seasons seem to get closer together. Despite that feeling, the time is one of beauty and it allows us to reflect upon the things that are important in our lives.
This year our tree has a slight lean and a few quirky stick out pieces but it doesn’t seem to matter, and I still think it’s beautiful. With its Disneyland star and decorations from our travels to many parts of the World, each year we take a bare tree and create our own work of Art.Wherever you may be, we wish you a Happy and Peaceful Christmas .
Waterlilies Well Worth Framing
Our Grade 3 and Grade 4 students painted Waterlilies in the Impressionist style of French artist Claude Monet. I noticed a Mum clutching this large work at our final School Assembly and told her that she was lucky and that she had scored my favourite piece. She agreed that it was fantastic and told me she’d be having it framed for their home. It is great to see student artwork being valued. Well Done to our Grade 3 and 4 students. Claude Monet would be proud.
Grade 5 Masks
Our talented Grade 5 students were keen to follow in the footsteps of the Grade 6s and have their Paper Mache masks photographed for our Blog.The Lion is by Jennifer, the Painted Lady by Jenny, The Panda by Nhung and the interesting Lady in the Hat by Chloe. Well Done Grade 5s. We look forward to seeing your work again next year.
Presenting our Graduation Mosaic
Last night’s Grade 6 Graduation was held at Luxor Receptions in Sydenham. At the end of the evening, as is tradition, the Principal, Mr Chris Sevior, was presented with a Mosaic depicting the animal featured this year on the Chinese Calendar. Erika’s design was chosen and made as a group effort by Grade 6 students. Congratulations go to Erika (pictured) and to all the students who contributed. The work will soon join the five previous year’s mosaics on the wall in our school courtyard.