Let’s Face It

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.

IMGP1222IMGP1335

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.

IMG_5398

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.

Lion in Artweaver

IMG_5596

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.

IMG_5441-1

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 .

IMG_5452-1

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.

IMG_5599

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.

IMG_5596

IMG_5560

IMG_5581

IMG_5589

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.

IMG_5551

More Marvellous Masks

Our Grade 6 students completed their Paper Mache Masks this week and they posed them in Class groups for some photographs for our Recent Student Artwork Page. These closeups show  the variety of designs   which the students used. Fantastic work Grade 6.

IMG_5414

IMG_5407
IMG_5399
IMG_5411