Grade 6 Art Project 2014

Each year at Kerrimuir the grade 6 students are involved in a collaborative art project as part of leaving their legacy at the school. I am very excited to announce that this year's project will be a large scale mural, made almost entirely from recycled CDs! 

Pictured below is the completed project at Reservoir West Primary School, courtesy of artist Max Darby. Max has worked at several schools across Victoria and overseas to create these wonderfully bright and vibrant murals for the community to enjoy. What I love about this project is that it is something that is easily accessible to children and looks so effective once complete. You can also see some photos of our students working hard last week to paint over 150 CDs in one session. 

The idea is to create a 'Tree of Life' at Kerrimuir that will continue to grow across the walls of the old bus shelter over the next two years. The walls will be painted and CDs and other circular discs added, starting with the blue/green colour palette for 2014! It is very exciting to see this project currently underway and taking shape in the art room. Over the coming weeks I will be posting more photos of our progress! 

If you would like to see more of Max's work online, please visit http://artseducationguru.com, where you can view more of his CD murals and other fantastic projects. Kerrimuir's mural will also appear on this website once complete!

Outer Space Display

Have you seen our space themed display in the corridor of the main building? It is out of this world! Last week students in grades 2/3/4 made pop out rockets using black paper and decorative bits and pieces. Students learned how to make and attach tabs to 2D shapes to make them three-dimensional. Students also added fiery red and yellow cellophane to their rockets to make them shoot through space! This week students will be constructing comets to add to this display.

3D Spacecrafts

Following on from their 2D spacecrafts, students in grades 2/3/4 constructed these amazing 3D spacecrafts from polystyrene blocks. We discussed the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of art, and talked about how to use the materials to construct and build a 3D spacecraft. Students made use of polystyrene blocks, construction foam, supertac glue, pins, foil, sequins, hologram paper, pipe cleaners and rainbow wire to make their spacecrafts. Students were given freedom to design, create and build their own unique spacecraft without too much direction. These took two weeks to construct and the students were fully engaged in problem solving, creating, making and building in the art room during that time. We are very impressed with the results! 

Magiclay Space Aliens

As part of their unit on space, students in grades 2/3/4 made these magiclay space aliens! Students were instructed to create whatever shape they liked for their alien before painting it in bright colours using poster paints. They then added decorative details such as joggle eyes, sparkly pipe cleaners, pom poms, merino wool and rainbow wire. A pyramid shaped spacecraft was also constructed for their alien using paper, glue and scissors. What a fun project! 

Castles and Dragons

As part of their unit on fairytales, myths and legends, students in grades one and two learned how to draw and paint castles and dragons using a range of media. We discussed common themes in fairytales such as kings and queens, castles, monsters, dragons, fairies and witches. Each class brainstormed a list of ideas and then followed a directed line drawing to draw a basic castle shape. We focused on the shapes, lines and patterns in castles and drew our pictures using black oil pastels. We added colour to our castles by painting with watercolour paints in bright colours. We then cut our castles out for display.

Our dragons were made using ripped pieces of tissue paper and glue. Students were encouraged to rip the tissue, rather than cut it with scissors. This gave the students unique and wonderful shapes for their dragons. Once dry, students added extra details such as scales, eyes and claws using a black oil pastel. Students then cut their dragons out for display. A fantastic way to start the term!

2D Spacecrafts

As part of their unit on space, students in grades 2/3/4 created these metallic spacecrafts using a range of mixed media. Students were each given a black piece of A3 paper and were shown how to create a galaxy background using metallic pastels and white crayons. Students also used metallic silver pens to create stars in their galaxies.

Once the background was complete, students were asked to cut a basic shape for their spacecraft. The shape could be anything the students liked. We discussed how shapes can be organic and rounded or angular and straight. Students cut a shape from foil and decorated their spacecraft using ‘defraction paper’ from Zart Art. Black pieces of paper were cut into shapes for windows and other features. The final touches were sprinkles of glitter and a few squirts of silver glitter glue where desired. The results are out of this world!