Watermelons ~ Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera inspired ~Colour mixing tints-Year 4

Inspired by Frida Kahlo’s ‘Viva la Vida, Watermelons’ and Diego Rivera’s ‘The Watermelons’ students first discussed and compared the two artworks, then drew their own compositions of watermelons – whole, half and sliced, the shapes overlapping.

Looking at images of watermelons, we talked about the different colour values and how to make them using tints- adding white to a colour. (We discussed how adding black would make a shade, a darker tone of the colour to use for shadows). Students used the dark green first then added white to make tints to add the lighter tones and did the same with red.

Victorian Curriculum lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, focus artwork and student examples, Venn diagram comparison worksheet and student evaluation sheet.

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AUD $3 for email download of this lesson plan

BOTJOY inspired by Gary Hirsch

For a whole school wellbeing project I introduced the students to creative artist, Gary Hirsch from Oregon in America and his bots, that he has been making for years to “spread joy, courage,
love, and gratitude throughout the world”. He wants people to “steal this idea” and make a bot to gift to someone in their community.

We watched a video of Gary explaining his bots. The students chose a positive feeling (love, confidence, patience, curiosity, kindness, bravery etc.) for their bot, then made a design in their scrap book using basic shapes for the head and body. I drew a variety of shapes on the whiteboard for students to choose from, along with antennae, arms & legs. (see handout below)

botjoy_how-to-instructions-1 Download

I got several boxes of dominoes from KMart and the students used paint pens, like Posca pens to draw and colour the head and body on a domino. This needs a few minutes to dry.

Students then add a face, a ‘symbol’ on the tummy to represent the bot, for example, a love heart for a Love Bot, a star for a Brave Bot, etc. Outline with a black fine liner and add white highlights.

I had been collecting magnetic calendars & business fridge magnets so cut these into small rectangles to hot glue onto the back of each domino. They were displayed on an old metal sheet, but easily removed to share or gift to someone, and then be kept on the fridge as a positive affirmation.

African Kente Cloth- paper weaving~ Year 1-2

Another successful lesson I did with Year 1 & 2 exploring art from different cultures (World Culture Art) was this paper weaving with added shapes and lines to represent to colourfully patterned cloth woven in Ghana, Africa. This idea is not original, I have seen it on many websites and there is a great video Kente paper weaving on YouTube showing the process to weave the paper and add geometric patterns to resemble / represent the patterns woven into the brightly coloured cloth.

Students chose an A4 coloured cover paper to cut up to a line 3cm from the top, then chose three CONRASTING coloured strips to weave through in a repeated pattern, eg. red, blue, yellow/ red, blue, yellow..

A tip to make weaving easier and faster is to pick up every second strip with the colour just woven and slip the next strip under, then wiggle it up to touch the squares above.

Lastly they add a simple pattern or shape to the background colour squares that they wove onto.

Next step is to add GEOMETRIC patterns. I drew some examples on the whiteboard and we talked about the difference between geometric and organic lines and shapes. I had the students try some in their scrap book first, using straight lines and geometric shapes like squares, rectangles and triangles. They could try some of the patterns on a handout sheet or make up their own. Students used black fine liners like ‘Sharpies’ and ‘Prockey’ markers for thicker lines. They had to do the same pattern on each of the same coloured squares. White pens were also used on darker colours if they chose.

Victorian Curriculum aligned visual art lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson steps, links to useful websites and stories, template to print 2 widths for the weaving ‘card’ depending on the experience with weaving, a reference sheet to copy for geometric pattern designs and a reflection/ evaluation sheet for students.

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Mexican Amate ‘Bark’ Art ~ Year 1/2

As part of a theme of world culture art, Year 1 & 2 looked at some traditional paintings on bark from Mexico. Students viewed amate paintings depicting flowers, birds and images from nature all in bright colours, outlined in black. We discussed the use of bright colours, size and placement of objects, for example one or two birds taking up most of the space, surrounded by flowers.

Amate comes from the Nahuatl word ‘amatl’ (paper) and is an ancient tradition of paper making made using the bark of fig and mulberry trees. To make amate, the outer tree bark is peeled and the inner bark is boiled and soaked in water overnight, then beaten with a smooth flat stone until the fibres fuse into a pulp. The pulp is molded and left to dry in the sun.

Firstly students practised drawing some birds in to their scrap books using printed out reference sheets as a guide. Then they chose one or two birds to draw ‘big’ onto 80gsm brown kraft paper in pencil first. They had a choice to use square of rectangle paper.

Oil pastels were used to colour in the birds and flowers, blending colours together with on finger. The paper was then crumpled to resemble the texture of bark paper like Amate.

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Lesson plan is aligned to the Victorian Curriculum, with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson steps and activities. There are two levelled reflection / evaluation sheets, plus five sheets of drawing reference sheets.

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Art Show 2022!

Preparing for an art show /exhibition is a lot of work, but it’s so worth it when the students and families come to view their own and others work. It’s a great community spirit.

My students had three items each on display (our school is reasonably small with approx 250 students). Most had two 2D artworks that required mounting on cover paper and labelling, plus a 3D item (or for the Year 5/6, two 3D items (paper mache or clay piece and a stitched and stuffed felt face.)

For this school Art Show, I let the students put their preferences of the 2D work they wanted exhibited, by putting first, second and third preference on the top of the pile in their art folios. This process began in third term with the work done to date. I then went through and pulled out their first preference to begin mounting and labelling. As they completed the following artworks they were added to the folios and rearranged with their new preferences, so that I could choose from those. If there was too much of the same item, I chose the next preference. Pretty well all the 3D items went on display (no mounting and hanging!)

I grouped the artwork, so that there was an explanation about the process, materials and where relevant, the artist that inspired the work. Each year level’s work was spread around different parts of the hall. Most of the displayed artwork has a post on this blog with the lesson activities and plan (or will have soon!)

Most of the art on display is shown in this video!

Mola Art ~ Year 1-2

World Culture Art lesson inspired by Mola art from San Blas Islands in Panama

Mola art is a panel sewn onto the front and back of the blouse or dress made and worn by the Kuna/Guna women from the San Blas Islands in Panama. It is traditionally made with layers of colourful fabric and the technique of reverse applique by cutting away parts of each layer to reveal a colour shape then turning under and sewing down the edges creating patterns and pictures of birds, fish, animals, flowers and plants.

Our art lesson captures the colour, shapes, patterns and layers using skills of collage: cutting out shapes and arranging to fill the space. Lots of concepts and skills- colour, line, shape, space, size, cutting, overlaying, arranging, pasting. I drew simple shapes of animals, fish and flowers to print out onto coloured cover paper for children to choose their shape (or students could draw their own shape)

They cut out their shape, chose a contrast colour to glue it onto, traced around it then cut out around the shape. They repeated this two more times before gluing to black paper to fill the negative space with coloured strips and shapes.

Victorian Curriculum Lesson for Year 1-2 with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson steps, links to useful videos or slides, shape pictures to copy onto A4 coloured paper (or to make shapes to trace) and a reflection or review sheet /activity to complete as a class or well suited to Year 2 to complete individually.

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Miro Primary Colour People~Prep

Much of Spanish artist, Joan Miro’s later work is wonderful inspiration for young children because of it’s child and dream like simplicity and abstract nature. Many of his works at this time were quite surreal and imaginative that used shapes, symbols and a limited colour palette. He often used primary colours too.

We looked at the artwork “Sun Eater” or sometimes called “Imaginary Boy” by Joan Miro made in the 1950s discussing shapes, lines and colours. They found the tiny bit of yellow in the eye and we reviewed the primary colours.

Students began by drawing the basic shapes on their paper in pencil first to make sure they had the size right. They then used paint sticks in any chosen primary colour to colour the circle on the body, followed by the surrounding square, then the stripe across the eye, making sure they used the three primary colours. Because paint sticks dry so quickly, they were able to then go over their pencil lines on the head, eyes, nose and mouth before using straight vertical and horizontal lines across and down the square body.

Lesson Plan for Prep/ Foundation aligned to Victorian Curriculum with lesson steps and success criteria statements.

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Koru: Māori Art from New Zealand ~ Year 1-2

Koru is a spiral shape representing the unfurling fern and is an integral symbol in Maori art from New Zealand. It symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. This project was one of a few lessons I did with Year 1-2 students on art from different cultures. I had done it may years ago successfully with a Prep class and wanted the Year 1-2 students to add a little more detail. We looked at the Koru art of Raewyn Harris from New Zealand as well as various drawings and tattoos with the koru shape.

It’s a good idea to get the students to practise drawing a spiral shape BIG so they can return the line out of the centre. We used black ink daubers to get the thick black lines. Next step was painting!

Victorian Curriculum Lesson plan for Year 1/2 with learning intentions success criteria, lesson activity steps, useful video and website links, example work.

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Bush Medicine Leaves~ Year 1-2

Students in Year 1/2 were learning about Aboriginal traditions and their use of leaves as medicine from ‘nature’s pharmacy’. We watched a YouTube video explaining various leaves from the bush and their use to treat different ailments. The lesson project is from Japingka Aboriginal Art website which has some wonderful art lesson plans. Check it out!

The lesson looks at the Bush Medicine art of Rosemary Petyarre, and we also looked at an artwork I own, also titled Bush Medicine Leaves by Rosemary Pitjara. We compared the artworks and discussed the movement in each.

We used liquid watercolours to paint a piece of paper in stripes or bands blending the edges, and also a spray of water to further add interest.

The black background paper has texture added with paint sponged, scraped and dabbed to create a sense of the bush or forest floor.

Students traced a gum leaf onto card, cut it out and used as a template to trace as many shapes as they could on the back of their watercolour paper. They then arranged these onto the background paper in a way that shows ‘movement’.

Students then used Zart white Perma Pens as a quicker method of dotting around the leaf shapes to highlight them.

Todd Parr inspired portraits~Prep

Two books by Todd Parr: “It’s OK to be Different” and “Be Who You Are” (Todd Parr website) are fabulous to explore the theme of diversity with young children. The illustrations are simple and bright, and lend themselves to this activity where Prep students choose different coloured faces, hair style and accessory to make a unique portrait, and perfect to practise cutting skills!

Prep/ Foundation Victorian Curriculum lesson plan with templates, learning intentions, success criteria, example artworks.

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