Term Four Art Classes

More photos to come...

After the success of the school holiday classes, we thought we'd give a regular class a go. Out went the emails, the notices in the school newsletters and word of mouth to give us a pretty big class of 25. They ranged from 5 to 10 with a pretty even mix of boys and girls and gee was there some talent.

Photos

We experimented with paint, pastels, line and ink drawing and patterns with a theme of our surroundings, predominantly the Australian bush. We scavenged and collected gumnuts, leaves, that wheat like grass stuff (not sure of the correct name), rocks, seed pods, flowers, bottlebrush blossoms, even dandelions and then proceeded to draw them in detail, patterns and eventually onto two lovely big banners which were then painted and presented to the lovely people down at Meath House Aged Care facility in North Beach.

Photos

Being the end of the year, we even got our fantastic group singing Christmas carols which they presented to the elderly folks in conjunction with their banners. I don't know who liked it more, the people who live at Meath House or the children being able to showcase their wonderful creation.

As a reward for all their hard work and so they remember how talented they are, we took their wonderful line drawings and recreated them as transfers which we put onto T-shirts for them as their Christmas gifts. I don't know who was more impressed, the kids with their ability or us at just how good their designs are.

October School Holiday Class

This time we decided to run two separate classes on the same day. Oh, and we decided to advance from the backyard into the local scout hall. It had a great space and was much more conducive to a group of school kids weilding paintbrushes. The morning class involved bugs. We spent time looking at all sorts of bugs - butterflies, spiders, beetles, dragonflies, ladybirds.






The class was then encouraged to look into the detail of the bugs and attempt to draw their bug. And of course we have to have a break in between and give them all time to stretch as you can see.


We used ink, chalk pastel, pencil and paint and let the children experiement with the feel of each medium. At the end of the class, they each came out with a framed picture.

We know with our own kids how much artwork they produce and how much of it never gets displayed. We just don't get around to having it framed so we decided we would make it easier and have the frames available at the class. It proved popular as every parent elected to take their childs work home proudly in it's own frame.

Our first class...

Our first class was chaotic to put it mildly. From memory I think we had about 20 children attend. As we are located so close to the coast the plan was to run the class at the local park by the beach. But when the weather forecast predicted a day of rain and wind we had to look at option two. And so we all crowded into Sandra's undercover outdoor area at her house, erected trestle tables, put out paint and set about sewing up 25 small bags as part of our activity for the class. We sat for a couple of days with our kids playing around our feet, whipping up calico bags from whatever we had in stock and then stripping fabric to be used to make the handles. But of course, we didn't do them the cheap and easy way, we made the bags complete with lining and included this fabric for the kids to pick from for the handles which they then had to plait.

There was a lot of thought put into the program from what each child would gain from the activity such as co-ordination and motor skills when plaiting, colour selection and of course the application of paint which every child loves. As you can see from the photo's, they had a great time and produced a functional item. That was another of our aims, to create something that can be used and is practical. So far I think we have managed to achieve this.