dinosaurs finished

Some of the y2's completed their dinosaurs today. They installed the pneumatic systems that work the mouths and added other embellishments - eyes, teeth (making sure they were herbivore teeth!), tongues, claws etc.

 

 

Below is a very short video;

 

 

And now I've figured out how to upload videos, here's the one of my train automaton from a few posts back;

 

Apologies for the wobble at the end - the camera was stuck to a jar lid with blu tack. Must invest in one of those small, table-top tripods!

BIG 2

It wasn't as messy as it could have been! The children were very sensible and managed to cover large areas of the dinosaurs rather than themselves!

 

 A little wooden peg doll I whittled recently. The joints are tied with elastic making it poseable.

BIG

The calm before the flurry of crepe paper and glue, as we papier mache our huge dinosaurs this afternoon. The T-Rex stands around 5' tall and towers over the littley's!

 

French-made kits and quite expensive so hoping we don't spoil them in our efforts to make them look 'realistic'.

fishcakes

Fresh from the kiln, some of our y6 fish.

 

 

 And one of the completed papier mache celebration cakes. We obtained the colouring by applying coloured tissue paper as the final layer rather than use paint. A card crown and a bit of fancy ribbon finish it off perfectly.

lots!

This was our art room the other day as y5 finished off their papier mache, tiered, celebration 'cakes'! The children did tidy it up at the end. When they are dry I'll post some pics.

 

Meanwhile in y6, we glazed our (slab) fish sculptures. They are designed to be suspended, hence the hole in the top!

And finally, today in y4 we went a long way to completing our felt hats. This is the back view of one - on the front is a happy face!

recent stuff

Last week the art club members finished off their ceramic jewellery pieces. These are some of the pendants that they made. Destined to be mothers day presents methinks!

 

In y5 we papier mached our 'tiered celebration cakes'.

And finally, spotted this car on our pottery buying trip to Poland this weekend. An old Skoda painted up in a 'classic' design.

recent

The mural on the FS1 wall continues to grow - this is part of the section supposedly showing children at play!

 

In FS2 we've painted, based and rigged our salt dough pirate ships.

In Y1 we painted our clay fish....

....and created underwater seascapes to display them.

In Y2 we began to papier mache the dinosaur heads - ready to take the pneumatic operating system (syringes and plastic tubing!).

maxi beasts

 In y2 today we put a second layer of papier mache onto our dinosaur armatures. The first layer was newspaper, this one was crepe paper. It means we don't have to paint them and it makes for a great texture. The reason why they only have necks is because we're going to make heads that have jaws that open and close by pneumatics! The necks are hollow so that we can fit the syringes and piping down them, out of sight.

 

 

papier mache & card

In FS2 we've been creating writing 'bugs'. This is a very large dragonfly taking shape - papier mache and wire construction.

 

 

On my worktable are a couple of prototype Vikings. These are card 3d models that I'm planning to do with our Y4's, to compliment their longships. They stand around 12cm tall.

papier mache

FS2 read one of Oliver Jeffers' stories about the boy and his friend the penguin today - 'Up and Down'. We decided to try and re-create one of the illustrations - in semi-relief. We papier mached  a cannon (of the human cannonball variety) and a ring master. Boxes as supports pasted over with one layer of newspaper and a coloured layer of tissue.

 

almost ready for 'launch'

The y5's have been rigging their ships today. Once the 'seas' have been done they'll be off on their voyages of discovery - around the school. We are going to display them in small groups at ad hoc points around and about the school building and 'allow' the rest of the school to 'discover' them as they are moving between lessons. We intend to move them around from place to place to keep it all fresh. We'll have to try and find some unusual places in which to place them.

 

sketching en plein air

Armed with sketchbooks and pencils the y2's (6/7 yr olds) ventured into town today. We looked carefully at buildings in the old parts of town and tried our best to sketch what we saw. I've included a photo of what they were actually looking at and what they drew in response. Some of them really surprised me with the level of detail that they managed to capture.

 

 

Whilst back at school the bigger children got around to painting their papier mache ships. Next week we attach sails (the children decided that they wanted to make them out of fabric, like real sails) and rigging.

clay faces and big ships

In y1 today (5/6 year olds) we made faces out of air-drying clay. We used 'sausages' and 'balls' to add the features. Lollipop sticks and pencils were used to impress details.We even implanted wool for hair - we are going to trim them when the clay has dried!

 

 

The y5's began to papier mache their ships - they are studying 'Exploration & Discovery' this term. There are 15 ships all together, so more of an invasion force than an exploration!

gymnastic sculpture

Managed to get thus far with our large papier mache sculptures in art club. Maybe another layer will do it and then we can paint! This shows one figure doing a 'crab', supported by another seated.

In y3 today we looked at paintings by William Powell Frith. Over the next 3 weeks or so we are aiming to create pictures in a similar vein. Started off by sketching crowds of stylised people using overlaps. This pic shows a before and then an after (instruction & input) sketch.

armatures

Managed to start putting the armatures for our ambitious papier mache sculptures together today. Have decided that the 'gymnasts' will be stereotypical Victorian - striped costumes, handlebar 'tasches etc. Possibly with the obligatory set of dumbells!

art club

Today in art club we made paper maquettes as a prelude to creating life-size sculptures. I think we may be a tad ambitious in what we hope to achieve!

Our aim is to use papier mache over a thick card support. We went for a gymnastic theme - wish us luck.

boxosaurus

Today we began to construct a big dinosaur out of cardboard boxes. Pairs of children were detailed to make specific body parts, ie. body, head, leg etc. The whole was then assembled using tape and cable ties. We had time at the end to begin to papier mache it.