Thursday 14th November

This week at Artclub we started a new project that will take us up to the end of term. We are making a backdrop for the Nursery's, Reception's and KS1 Christmas productions.

All three productions are centered around the Nativity and so we are having great fun painting a stable scene.

The painting is large-scale, so a big contrast to the scrapbook/sketchbook we have been making up until now.

We all had a chance at painting and also a turn at drawing an animal on a small scale which we will later paint much bigger for our painting.

Next Thursday we will be going to Rodillian Academy to work with their Art teacher and GCSE students to create some really exciting experimental pages for our scrapbooks.

What we have been up to in Artclub

Over the last four weeks we have been busy in Artclub making the pages of our scrapbooks.
We have used different techniques to create exciting backgrounds which we can later personalise with our own photos or memorabilia.

For our first page we created a sepia effect with tea and coffee. The leaves were rubbed in and coffee sprinkled to make dense areas of brown.

We also started to design our own frames for our photos.

We then tried out an exciting technique which produces a really colourful pattern using oil, paint and water.

Next, brightly coloured tissue paper was laid on to white paper and lots of water was brushed over it.

The designs looked fabulous at this point, but they needed to dry.

When they had dried the tissue easily came away leaving an unexpected but exciting result, which we will reveal when the books are complete.

Another experimental technique we used was to paint dyes on to paper and saturate it.  Plastic wrap was then laid over it and as it covered the paper the wrap was manipulated to crease.  These were then left to dry and we have some exciting patterns as a result. (Again to be revealed when the books are complete.)

The Thursday before half term was spent cutting our papers to size, laminating our front covers and assembling our photos. They are looking great so far!

The Big Draw 2013

This year The Big Draw took place on Monday 14th October at Robin Hood. This is the third year we have taken part and we wanted to create the "wow" factor that you get when you first walk into the school hall and it looks completely different to usual.  The past two Big Draw events we have held had white paper covering the hall's floor, to create a blank canvas on which we could draw.  This year we turned the hall into "outside."  There was a green floor, a stream, a path and a wall, all ready to be drawn onto...

...and this we did. Throughout the day, each class visited the hall and were inspired to draw and make marks all over the floor, imagining what they would see in the grass, stream, on the path and on the wall.

We had lots of fabulous mini-beasts, fish, frogs on lily-pads-even a fairy at the bottom of the garden from our Foundation stage and Key Stage 1.

Whilst Lower Key Stage 2 drew us a fantastic allotment with vegetables, scarecrows and even pumpkins for Halloween.  Upper Key Stage 2 designed us a skate park, drawing skateboards, graffiti and the Robin Hood Primary School tree in the brightest neon colours.

Throughout the day every child in each class was drawing in some way, be it pencil, paint, creating line and form with collage, oil pastels, glass paints, powder paints, glitter, felt pens....

....Nursery made us a massive caterpillar collaged with recycled plastic bags, plastic lids, pipe cleaners and coloured foil paper.

Reception made the most beautiful giant butterfly that had been collaged with a myriad of coloured paper.

Key Stage 1 created abstract birds, fishes and frogs which they put together in fabulously interesting ways. 

Lower Key Stage 2 produced three large paintings which they had studied and divided into equal parts.  They then each worked on a section and pieced it back together. 

They also painted some great colourful skylines on acetate.  Upper Key Stage 2 designed graffiti and artwork for the wall which certainly added a splash of colour.

At 3pm we opened our hall doors to proudly show off all our fantastic creations.

Watch this space for more...

Thursday 26th September

Today we continued designing our front covers for our sketchbook / scrapbooks.

 

 

We completed the background and then drew out our name for the front cover. 

 

 

The design for the name label was suggested by the Art tutor at Rodillian who we will be working with us, on Thursday 24th October up at Rodillian High School.

 

Thank you to those of you who have brought in special pictures to put in your sketchbooks.  We will be using these shortly to personalise your books.

See you next week.

 

Thursday 19th September

Today was our first session of the new KS 2 artclub. We have an exciting new project to experience!  Working with Rodillian High School we are going to be making our own sketchbooks/scrapbooks.
We will be based at Robin Hood but on the 24th October we will go to Rodillian to create three pages for our sketchbook.  We will be based in the art studios and the Art tutor will lead the session helped by some GCSE students. It will be a marvellous opportunity to experience Art in a high school.  This will continue after half term when we will be working on a Ceramics project and we will make two further trips to Rodillian. I certainly cannot wait to throw a pot on the potter's wheel!

Today we started the front covers. We could choose whether we wanted to have a monochrome background and use newspaper to tear into strips and then pick out certain words that we found important to us.  Some of us chose pictures we liked and worked them into the design.

 

 

Some of us used pages out of magazines and tore them up to create vibrant patterns and found pictures of things we like to hide between the colours.

 

 

 

Others chose tissue paper to make fabulous shapes and then added ribbons and fabric to create beautiful textures.

 

Next week we will be designing our name for the front cover.

Thursday 4th July

Well, today was the last "making" session of the artcub for this school year. Next week there will be chance to show your family and friends what you have been making.  You are to be collected from school as usual at 3.15pm, then we will meet at Stanhope Community Centre at 3.45pm.

Today, we ripped off the sticky tape that was stuck on our "wall."  We applied this to act as a resist to the paint we sponged over it, creating brick shapes. We were really pleased with the effect!

The final bits of graffiti were painted.  These will be stuck to the wall.  This backdrop will be used for "Oscars Night" and the Year 6 Summer Production.

Paintings were continued with...

...and these will be used in the productions.

They are looking great!

Thursday 27th July

Today we were developing our ideas for the Drama Club's Summer Production's scenery.  We sponge painted the "wall" in lovely rich brick colours outside under the canopy, where we could keep dry from the rain.

We painted our own graffiti in bright neon colours which will be fixed to the wall.

Those of us who are painting the space pictures started laying down colour and they will be finished next week.

We are also producing some paintings for the Year 6 Summer Production and we started these today. They are to be a park and a football pitch.   As this production is also based on a school theme we will be able to use the "wall" scenery as well.

The  two remaining caterpillars have been decorated with collage.  These are for the wall hangings we have been making for Stanhope Community Centre.  They are nearly complete!  Mrs. Mistry and myself applied the borders to them yesterday and we do hope you will like them.

Thursday 20th June

Today at Artclub there were lots of exciting activities to do.  We had the caterpillars we painted last week to collage and working in our groups we did this.  Some of us can continue with this next week.

As we are now working on the scenery for the drama group's performance of "School Daze" we laid out strips of sticky tape on to a large piece of tie-dyed fabric recycled from "The Pirates of the Currybean."  These will mask the fabric from the sponge painting we will be doing next week, creating a brick effect.  This is going to be the backdrop and will have grafitti on it that we have designed.

Some of us really enjoyed designing our own grafitti and next week we will be painting it.

Some of us were busy designing the two paintings that will feature on stage and suggest that the production is set in the future.

One painting will be of the bridge of a spaceship...

 

...the other, will feature our galaxy.

Thursday 13th June

Well the paintings are nearly completed for Stanhope Community Centre.  Today we glued down the fruits on to the backgrounds.

They are looking really fabulous!

Then we all got to print the "Very Hungry Caterpillar", using the same colours as in the books.  This is because we wanted the toddlers who go to the breakfast club at Stanhope Community Centre to recognise the caterpillar and think of the story.  At the same time lots of healthy fruit is depicted, hopefully encouraging them to eat a lovely breakfast.

Next week we will add some collage to the caterpillars to keep the same theme running through the paintings.

After we had completed this, we learnt about our next exciting project.

Mrs. Comstive has asked if the Artclub would make the scenery for the summer drama production of "School Dayz."  There was a definite buzz of excitement as we discussed what we needed to do and how I thought we could achieve it. (I had prepared a model out of straws, boxes and lollipop sticks.)  Interesting...as it has to be free-standing. 

Some rushed off to the computers to start their research, whilst others, put pencils to paper and got some ideas down.  The play is set in the future so we need to design two futuristic scenes.  Also we need to paint a brick wall and showcase some of our own fantastic grafitti on it.

I can't wait to see what ideas you all come back with next week...