Wild Watercolours

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“Well Done” to our Grade 5 students who have been drawing Australian animals and using watercolour paints to make pictures inspired by Australian Author  Illustrator Graeme Base. Jacob’s shark is lurking about in the  ocean depths while Sarah’s Wombat is cheekily hiding  in his underground burrow. Both students are in  wonderful  and creative 5AA.

Koalas Down Under

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Our new Prep students  (Kindergarten or Reception as they are known in some countries) have been looking at the “Koala Lou” story by Australian author Mem Fox. They made a collage using torn  and cut cover paper and have also used some of our Eucalyptus or gum leaves for decoration. It is interesting to see the variety of work and the character involved in the Koalas as they go about their days eating gum leaves and sleeping. Their Art Teacher, Caroline Le Sueur, is very proud of the effort the students put into their first Artwork at Primary School. Well Done Prep JW.

Art Works

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Grade 4 student Jess D brought in some wonderful Art work inspired by the work of  Canadian Plasticene artist Barbara Reid. Jess had obviously watched the three instructional videos on a previous blog post because she  followed Barbara’s instructions very well  and created a very cute mouse. Nib, the mouse, is a character in Subway Mouse, one of Barbara’s many wonderful picture story books.


Blinky Bill Again

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Recently our Grade One students painted Blinky Bill (a cute and cheeky Koala created by  Australian Author -Illustrator Dorothy Wall in 1933) with such great character that I have decided to post some more photos to showcase the work. The students get such an enormous boost when they see that their work has been used.  I enjoy watching the pride on their faces and the support that their classmates give them with a round of applause. I hope  that their Class teachers will support our Visual Arts Blog by encouraging their students to make Blog comments. I am keen that reading and commenting on Blog posts should become a recognised and frequently used activity in Literacy lessons.

We are part of the Global Community

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This year we are becoming increasingly aware through our Visual Arts Blog that we are part of the Global Community. Each time we watch a national flag and town name flashing on our Revolver Map we wonder who the viewer is and what their town is like.
Some of our latest visitors have included people from –
Langhorne, Pensylvania, USA, Cornelius, North Carolina, USA, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, Thunder Bay, Canada, Enterprise, Alabama, USA and Poprav, Presov,  which we found (via Google Maps)  is in Slovakia.
Congratulations to those students who have made Blog comments so far. Let’s see if we can get a lot more comments from our  Taylors Lakes Primary School Community and School Communities throughout the World very soon.

Who’s Who @ Melbourne Aquarium

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Our previous post featured  just four of the wonderful creatures at Melbourne Aquarium so today I thought I’d add some more but show them from different angles. Our Grade 5 and 6 students  found that by observing the photographs closely they were able to add the right number of gills to their sharks and the numerous fins in the right places. Having such detailed photographs to draw inspiration from added to the quality of our work . After watching Plasticene artist Barbara Reid talk about how she uses the Internet and books to research  the features of the animals before sketching her picture book pages we aim to use photographs more often.

Underwater Wildlife

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Last Sunday we took our Rotary Youth Exchange students to the Melbourne Aquarium to see our wonderful aquatic wildlife up close.  I showed the best sixty eight animal portraits to  my classes and have chosen four to share with our wider audience. The photos have already begun many discussions and inspired some great drawings so I look forward to visiting more of our Zoos and Wildlife Parks over the next few months.

Grade Ones Paint Blinky Bill

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Children seem to like that rascal of a Koala, Blinky Bill. Created in 1933 by Dorothy Wall, Blinky has lots of adventures with his friends and family and the song  at the start of the DVD has a catchy tune which makes us all keen to sing along when we warch it on our big screen TV in the Art Room. Our Grade One and Grade Two students mixed  black and white to make grey paint and created their own versions of  the koalas in the stories. We  love our characters. We hope you will like them too.