From Macbook to Tropical Fish???

Recycling in the artroom is one of my things. I love getting donations for the other departments within the college. Being a 1:1 laptop program school (Secondary students) every year we get additional Macbooks to lease out to students. Along with the Macbook comes a lot of packaging.
Enter Cindy to scoop up resources for the Art room :P

These CD fish were made from using the cardboard packaging corners from the Macbooks as the bases and the start up CD's.

We looked a lots of pictures of tropical fish and coral reef environments to get ideas for fish scale patterns. The fins, tail, eyes and lips were paper coloured using crayons.

Not bad for FREE!!!!

Still life drawing-surpise!!!

 Never under estimate your kids and what they will think is 'cool'. This still life drawing activity in my eyes was one of the more 'not as exciting' activities i had planned for my grade 4 classes. Coming off the back of creating wire sculptures i thought the kids reaction would be BOR-ING!!!

Oh how wrong was I. They LOVED IT!

 For the lesson i set my room up in true art studio formation. All the tables facing inwards so everyone had their own angle of the fruit bowl (i have never done this with this grade, so just by moving the tables around created that 'hook' to get them interested)

Materials: fine line pen, watercolours

Constrasting colours

This lesson was a last minute addition to my planner this term. Because of some Public holidays I found that some of my grade 1 classes would be out of sync with the rest, so the solution was a fill in activity to reinforce some colour theory. 

Surprisingly some of the kids had never made paper snowflakes before which blew my mind (this was one of my all time favourite things to make as a kid)

 This activity was great for talking about shapes, colour, symmetry and fractions.

Pop Art Food miniatures

Anyone hungry? Grade 4 have created some amazing food miniatures inspired by Pop artists from around the world. The only guideline the kids had was the food could be NO bigger then their thumb nail.

 My personal favourite is the sushi roll and pink sprinkle donut. MMMMMmmmmm!!!

Oh and the tiniest gingerbread man and choc chip cookie you've ever seen.

Rapunzel let down your hair!

When I came across this in my travels I knew it would be perfect for Grade 2 as they are looking at Fairytales. Plus it looked like so much fun...
Kids Artists Blogspot
Thanks for the inspiration

Here are some of my kiddies creations.

Hessian Sewing

 Simple sewing using large plastic needles, wool and natural hessian.

Who said sewing dead! I have to say this was one of Grade 3's favourite activities this term.

Basket Weaving

I love how these simple pre-cut cardboard baskets turned out. The feathers and skeleton leaves really give them that extra something.

The Circus is in Town!!

Who would of thought a paper bag could be so much fun. Grade 1 had a go a designing their own clown puppet from a simple paper lunch bag.

A few buttons, joggle eyes, pom poms and some material later you have a very cheap puppet to keep the kidlets entertained.
To continue our clown theme I also got the kids to make a drawing of their clown performing and painted them using watercolour paints. For the borders we used 'Paper Popz' decorations, patty pans and sequins.

Wire people

Here are some more amazing sculptures from my grade 4's. We used soft wire, seed beads and beading wire to make these figures. I attached some colourful wool to hang.

Lines, Zig zags and swirls

Prep have been exploring lines and mark making this term. We created these lovely pieces by combining oil pastels and food dye.

Rainbow Serpent

The kids had a lot of fun creating their own sgraffito pieces of art after reading 'The Rainbow Serpent'. First they coloured their paper using bright oil pastels, making sure ALL the paper was covered. Then the fun part, adding the black paint and letting their imaginations run wild.

Fireworks

BANG!!!!! Fireworks are one of those things that EVERYONE loves. Grade 1 created their own fireworks by simply using black paper, coloured match sticks and PVA glue.

Giacometti-Bodies in Motion

Grade 4 have been focusing on representing the human form in motion this term. We used the work of Alberto Giacometti to inspire us.

First the kids had to make a sketches from sports photography of their figures. Next they molded their figures from pipe cleaners and wrapped them in foil. To make the sculptures stronger the kids wrapped florist wire over the foil. We attached the sculptures to the wooden bases using magic clay.

Windows

Grade 1 read Window by Jeannie Baker and created their own windows to the world.

Torn paper self portraits

These are some of my favourite Grade 1 collage self portraits. Its amazing how kids will run with an idea...

Kandinsky circles

Grade 4 combined crayon and water-colour paint to create their own Kandinsky inspired circles