Gorgeous Geodes~ Year 3

These gorgeous geodes use a mix of mediums: coloured paper, liquid watercolours, glitter, markers and paint sticks. This lesson was adapted from an activity on the Artful Parent website.

We watched a couple of videos about geodes: Types of Geodes & Where to Find Them and
What’s Inside These Rocks? – #sciencegoals for an understanding of how they are formed and discussed the natural shapes and colours, etc. Our artwork used the elements of shape, line, colour and value in an abstract representation of a geode.

Students began by choosing two pieces of coloured card in a light and dark tone of one colour. A shape was torn (best option to get a realistic organic shape) or cut from the darker tone which was then glued onto the lighter tone and torn or cut around. This was glued onto a large piece of white paper (we used A3 cartridge).

Using the lighter tone of the colour (for example, light blue) students drew concentric lines around the card shape, following the contours, repeating three times. The darker shade ( dark green for example) was then traced once around.

Next, watercolours (cake palettes or liquid) were painted around the marker lines, light and dark of the colour (watercolours can be watered down for lighter tone).

For the “glitter ring” I demonstrated to the students how to ‘draw’ with the nozzle of the PVA glue bottle and only squeeze very gently as they move it around while keeping it in contact with the paper whilst ‘drawing’ the ring of glue. They smeared it with on finger and then sprinkled on the colour glitter to match (or metallic gold or silver)

After that, some more thin marker lines were drawn and finally using paint sticks- two rings of the lighter tone using the edge to get a thinner line and the last dark line drawn thickly.

The geode shape was cut out and glued onto brown craft paper (we used packing paper) and cut around with around a 1cm border to represent to outer rock that the beautiful geodes are hidden in.

The geodes make a lovely display with all the different sizes and colour combinations!

Opulent Opals! Year 4

Year 4 were learning about the earth’s crust, so I thought we’d look at what comes from under the earth’s surface. We looked at Jenny Kee’s opal artworks from the1980’s that have been printed onto silk scarves and her Black Opal print that was used by Karl Lagerfeld in his first prêt-a-porter collection for Chanel in 1983 on shirt dresses and suit lining. We then compared these artworks with another Australian artist, Dianne Delandro from Sydney who has made a number of artworks featuring opals.

Students began their artwork by putting down small blobs of paint (mainly cool colours) and then scraping in various directions, then adding some warm colours into the gaps (not too much red, as it’s the rarest colour you’ll find in opals) and scraping some more.

Next lesson, the students drew organic shapes with a black marker and used black paint sticks to colour the negative space. White pencils were used to add outlines and highlights to make the opals a look a little 3D.

Lesson plan aligned to the Victorian curriculum, with learning intentions, success criteria, focus artists and artworks, discussion questions, lesson steps, materials and resources, and photo examples.

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Beautiful Botanicals ~ Yr 5-6

For this art project Year 5 looked at the art of Bernadette Twomey based in Brisbane, Australia. Her artworks feature bold colours and abstract botanical shapes in different colour palettes. Students could choose their own colour scheme from cool to warm to earthy to a combination.

They viewed a selection of Bernadette Twomey’s artwork to identify varied colour combinations and shapes used. We discussed the elements of art used and then students used a word list to describe each one and draw the botanical shapes they noticed in B.Twomey’s work.

They began by painting a background in chosen colours and the next lesson they drew botanical shapes and painted them in.

The final lesson was to add dots lines and outlining to their shapes as well as the negative space.

Lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, activity step by step, photo examples, artwork response sheet, elements of art word list, botanical shapes reference sheet, reflection checklist for self and peer assessment.

‘STRIPE’ and Paypal are used to process payment. Please check you type in the correct email for link to be sent automatically. The link will also be on the CONFIRMATION page after you pay to download immediately. Any problems contact me at primaryschoolart1@gmail.com

Dotty Flowers~ Yayoi Kusama inspired – Year 5-6

I introduced Year 6 to Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and her prolific art and obsession with dots. She grew up on her parent’s seed nursery surrounded by flowers, plants and even pumpkins. I shared this video about how Kusama became an artist and expressed herself through her drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations, fashion, performance art and ‘infinity’ rooms.

We looked at some of her flower paintings that have a ‘net’ background and flowers. Students used A4 paper to draw their own flowers- realistic or abstract, outlined with a fine liner, then coloured with markers or watercolours.

Next they chose a coloured piece of cover paper that would contrast with their flower and began to draw their net design: drawing short lines in different directions but connected.

The flower shapes were then cut out (a little tedious for some!) and glued onto their net background.

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.

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.