#art – Hazeldown Primary School

Little Acorns- Sunshine and Sunflowers

The children have really enjoyed our most recent topic- Sunshine and Sunflowers. They have explored their whole school environment and noticed how it has changed throughout the year. They have grown a range of flowers from seeds and learnt how to care for them. Some of the children have had a really close look at flowers and drawn their own masterpieces. They have also taken part in outdoor learning activities and practiced how to stay safe in the sun.

This afternoon, Year 2 thought about what an artist is and the different types of media they use to create their artwork. We learnt a new media called collage and created our own floral collages, thinking about texture, shade and pattern for the different parts of our flowers. We had to be resilient as we found that collages can take some time as they are very detailed. We thoroughly enjoyed it and were keen to share our artwork with our friends and were proud of our hard work!

This year for World Book Day the children came in dressed as a word. Some of the words were ‘rainbow’ ‘brave’ ‘elegant’ ‘monster’ ‘ladybird’ ‘sparkly’ ‘nocturnal’ ‘pretty.’ Don’t they all look fabulous!

The children all designed their own bunting flag based on their favourite book character. We have proudly hung the bunting in our literacy area.

As one of our world book week activities year 5 have been learning about the importance of illustrations within books and how illustrators work alongside authors. The children had to follow drawing tutorials and apply our resilience learning value when things weren’t going their way. I think you’ll agree there are some fantastic artists among us.

We are starting our new topic Misty Mountain Winding River by completing the companion project Vista. Vista is all about drawing mountain landscapes. We started the morning by learning about an artist’s tool called a viewfinder and we went outside to draw our own beautiful landscape using the tool.

After that we started to look at famous paintings of mountains. We were able to compare similarities and differences between them and explain what we like about them and how the artists had used colour, line and texture.

We then learnt some pen and ink techniques such as hatching, stippling and random lines and we practised creating tone by moving the lines further apart. Next, we used pencil to create tone and finally watercolours. We then investigated how artists use atmospheric perspective to make things look like they are far away.

Lastly we looked at the colour wheel and explored warm and cool colours.

After lunch, we used everything that we had learnt to create our own mountain landscape. We hope you enjoy looking at out pictures!

Little Acorns have been celebrating Chinese New Year. We watched a short film about how people usually celebrate. We learnt that the colour red brings good luck! Families clean their homes to get rid of the old and bring in the new, they wear traditional clothing and eat a big Chinese buffet feast to celebrate.

So we decided to celebrate by trying Chinese food at snack time. The children enjoyed prawn crackers and noodles whilst listening to Chinese music.

In the play tray we had pebbles with red and orange tissue paper to represent a hot stone fire. We then placed a wok on top with strands of wool and the children had a go at using the chopsticks to cook the ‘noodles’.

For PE we used the school hall. We watched a short film about how the Chinese dance as if they are a Chinese Dragon. We then copied this by holding onto each other’s waists.

Finally we made our very own Chinese Dragon puppets using the traditional colours for Chinese New Year.

Palm Class enjoyed an afternoon creating paintings of waves and coastlines in line with our current learning journey. They thought about colours that would blend together, brush strokes, texture and abstract art. The children were reminded about Austin’s Butterfly and had to think about how they could improve each attempt. The children used watercolours and they had to work out how to deepen and lighten each colour.

This week we have been making icy art pictures with frozen paint! The children used the frozen paint sticks to create their own colourful art pieces which are proudly displayed on the walls in Little Acorns.

For the first part of half term our topic has been ‘Starry Night’. The children have enjoyed exploring the differences between the world at night time compared with daytime, through a range of exciting and creative activities. They have learnt about nocturnal animals and how they find food when it is dark. We have discussed people who work at night and the different jobs that people do when we are asleep, and they have learnt about bedtime routines and the importance of a good night’s sleep. The pictures you can see here are their very own creations of the sky at night time and what a full moon looks like including its craters!

Noah has been busy painting using a variety of bright colours.

Scarlett collected flowers whilst out walking and added them to her flower catcher.

Darcey has been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar story and chose to make her own butterfly painting.

One of the reasons we love where we live is because of the beautiful landscapes we have.

Year 2 spent sometime experimenting with using water colours. Later, they sketched the view from the playground and used this back in the classroom to paint the landscape using water colour paints. What techniques did you use in your painting? What did you learn about painting the sky?

Green Team met at lunch time today and took inspiration from fireworks to create their own pieces of natural art.

This afternoon Year 1 ventured outside into the woods to make self portraits. We then worked together to make a model of our bodies. We will be using these during the first term next year, when we will learn more about parts of the body and our senses.

This afternoon, we have been drawing either a polar bear or a penguin. We have followed a step by step video to help us focus on different parts of the animals.

Year One have been creating some awesome African art! We have been learning how to draw different African animals and using oil pastels to create our own colourful pieces.

We learned the importance of drafting and how being a critical friend helps other improve further.

Take a look at some of our finished art work. We can’t wait to show you at the celebration event. We had to carefully practice drawing our image for the front of our window. Most of us decided to do the first letter of our name or shapes. Why did they have to be black?

In Year One we have started to make some stain glass windows using rubbish. We will soon be on the way to our finished product. Take a look. What do you think we used?

Year 6 have had a great afternoon creating some fantastic artwork with the help from Mrs Parr, a professional artist and teacher. She taught them the signifcance of feathers for the Native Americans and how to mono-print with effect. I’m sure you’ll agree that the final outcomes are amazing and really effective.

Every Year 6 child got to experience and learn how to print and how to take their art to the next level. It was great to see them explore and experiment with a different type of media.

The main school corridor has been taken over by an army of terracotta warriors! After learning about the ancient Chinese terracotta warriors in Xi’an, Year 3 and 4 have used clay to create their own army, containing nearly 120 warriors! Luckily, our warriors are slightly more intact than many of the originals!

In SOLE we have have started looking at the Great Fire of London.

Here you can find a link to a video that we have been studying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX9ulzeCQGo

We have also started creating line drawings of what it might have looked like. To warm up our hands and practice our fine motor skills we watched Shoo Rayner first. You can see his ‘Why you should practice drawing video’ under our help my child learn tab.

Have a look at some we have done.

We have begun to apply this to drawing an image of London in 1666. It’s important for us to do drafts, improve each time and take our time. Have a look at the start of some of our firsts drafts. What could we do differently next time?

Today we made the frames for our Christmas lanterns. The children (and adults) had great fun collaborating, sawing, measuring and snipping.

Have a look at some of the great shapes we made ready to be covered on Thursday.

Thank you to everyone who came to help.

This week in SOLE we have taken inspiration from Shoo Rayner to draw patterns in boxes. This then helped us with following the steps to draw mehndi patterns.

Can you find more at home and practice your favourite one?

Year Two have been looking at different kinds of fruit. They needed to pay particular attention to the shape and texture as the moulded their clay to look as realistic as possible. What worked really well for you? What could you improve? Could you try at home with some play dough or salt dough?

This afternoon, year 6 began using a Modroc technique to strengthen their personalised figures.

What skills did you learn?

What was challenging?

How did you overcome these difficulties?

So wonderful to see and hear many, many learning conversations between children, parents and teachers. It is only possible to create such wonderful experiences when so many parents offer their time so generously. The ModRoc creations have taken form from the Tinman learning and are improving with every new effort. Thank you to all who have volunteered now (second day stalwarts) and in the past.

Oh, and it has been great fun for all involved too!?

Amelia and Mia took the challenge with Mums and Grannies to make some tin people. Lots of effort seen. Mia had a whole tin family of people with her! Well tried both.

Lucas, Bibi, Honey and Isla all accepted the “Tin man in ten minutes” challenge and spent some quality time with Mums, Dads and siblings making their creations. Well done, you tried really hard and we can see the effort you have all put in. Thank you for valuing learning.

Mr T.

We have had a great afternoon in S.O.L.E creating tin foil people. We’ve explored the material, manipulated it and had a number of attempts in making something we are proud of.

What do you think of our creations?

This morning, Ebony Class worked in groups to create natural Mandelas within the forest school grounds. They worked with people they didn’t often work with, problem solved, foraged for items, took risks with their artwork as well as working to deadlines.

They all created some amazing pieces, showed great reflective skills and supported one another.

Everybody has been impressed with what has been created.

What do you think? Could you re-create your own at home?

Following yesterday afternoons activities of looking at facial proportions in art and sketching, This morning Ebony have been looking at drawing portraits of themselves. The class have been blown away by Lily Watt’s artistic talent of working with pencil and shading. Not only that, but she has also shown great collaborative skills and has been supporting others across the class.

Well done Lily!

Year 4 have been using ‘Austin’s Butterfly’ as inspiration to produce high quality drawings of animals from the Amazon.

We have also produced fact files and map work about Brazil.

Year 5 have been so fortunate to have the incredibly talented Mr Andrews working with the children in creating amazing backdrops and props for the iCan performance. Using his professional set design and props making skills, he has taught the children how to create amazing items as well as creating fantastic, art work for our set.

What do you think of what they have done so far?

This afternoon, Monkey Puzzle were busy beavering away making props and set for their performance of iCan. The teamwork and positive creative atmosphere was amazing! We can’t wait until the performance and we hope that you can’t either!

Here’s a sneaky peek of what we have been up to….

What a busy morning! We’ve started reflecting upon our half term of learning and we are so shocked and amazed by how much we had actually learnt in such a short time!

Year 5 are proving to be very talented artists! Over the past half term, the children have been looking at and using a variety of materials to practise their artistic skills. Our most recent work has been replicating a local artist’s work and the results have been fantastic!

Keep up the good work Monkey Puzzle!

During SOLE today, some children chose to draw an animal from the Amazon Rainforest in the style of Millie Marotta (an artist who uses intricate patterns to show the detail)

They also had to write a reflection of the audition process for iCan.

It it would be great if you could have a go at home at some more animal drawings using Millie Marotta as inspiration!

Year 5 have had a very arty afternoon in SOLE, with the children learning how to draw from a two point perspective. Their inspiration has come from Shoo Rayner and they have used this skill to illustrate the ‘back beach’. Alongside this, they have been practising their watercolour skills as well as researching local artists.

The best was that one of our year 5 children has a mum who is a famous artist, so the children enjoyed researching and finding out facts about her….things that even her own son didn’t know!

Today the children have been researching facts about animals which can be found in the Amazon Rainforest. They also used Shoo Rayner tutorials to draw the animals.

Have a go at drawing some of the creatures at home! Just search for Shoo Rayner videos.

Children from year 5 have been showing off their amazing photography skills as part of out learning journey’s art focus.

Have a look through some of their fantastic images that really highlight their natural flare and talent.

Enjoy!

With the glorious sunshine, and the launch of our new topic, children from year 5 were out practising their photography skills. Composition, camera position and the light source were all considered, with amazing results!

Look out for our photos, coming soon!

Today, year 5 and 6 have been working hard on journaling all their learning for the past half term. They have thought about the challenges they faced, their successes, what skills they have developed and also how they overcame any obstacles.

This morning Monkey Puzzle are working hard to complete their Top Ten animal fact books that they have been creating this half term. Some fantastic art work is being finished off alongside some great factual information!

We can’t wait to see the finished results!

Monkey Puzzle have been journaling and reflecting on all their learning in SOLE….They have all presented their work differently and I have been incredibly impressed with their imagination and enthusiasm on their reflections and presentation. Could you think of where you could use this journaling skill at home?

Well, we finally got the paint out to start painting our terrific dinosaurs! All 30 of us, at the same time! We were feeling very brave!

We started off by painting a base colour all over our model, with some thicker brushes. After that, we began to add a second coat and some initial detail. Finally, we used some finer brushes to apply even greater detail and originality to our dinosaur creations.

We had to be extremely patient in between each coat of paint drying and being able to add the next layer of detail. Well done Palm Class, you showed great care and skill to complete your dinotastic dinosaurs!

Shoo may have ‘left the building’ but his skills, inspiration and love of drawing have remained! Some excellent examples of patterning, shape and light points.

Dinotastic drawing strikes again in Palm Class!

With great guidance and inspiration from the fabulous Shoo Rayner, we were able to create our own dinomasterpieces! Well done Shooby dooby dino doodlers!

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