art week 1

Been trying to do lots of art this week - in between all the other frantic end of year stuff. The overall theme for the week is 'Line, shape & pattern' which hopefully gives all the staff quite a loose rein to cover a very wide range of stuff.
My class started off by looking at Picasso's use of line, in that he conveys and represents a recognisable image using the minimum of marks, often in the form of a continous line. Here's one of the children's pics;




Today we looked at Paul Klee and his mix of line and shape.We used watercolours to paint images in his style - these are looking very promising;

The idea is to, next week, hold a week-long exhibition of pieces created by the whole school. We're going for quality rather than trying to display every single piece by every single child. Hopefully serves as a bit of an incentive/pride thing.

Alongside the exhibition we are also holding a 'running auction' of celebrity 'artworks'. Several months ago I 'invited' over 100 celebs, film stars, sports & TV personalities to send in artwork based around the letter 'H'. Why the letter 'H' ? Because the proceeds from the auction will go to the charity 'Help for Heroes'. I've managed to get 20 pieces from: Korky Paul, Jan Pienkowski, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, Bob Hoskins, Bernard Cribbins, Frankie Dettori to name just a few. Some are real works of art, some are doodles, but all are unique! Hopefully they should raise a bob or two. Might post some images up later in the week. If I was a bit more technically minded perhaps I could have listed them online at the same time thereby inviting internet bids. Never mind, maybe next time.

Phew- back to report writing!

up and down

Have just got back after a week away with children from my school. We visited the Harz mountain area here in Germany. 5 days of going up and down hills, in and out of museums, over summer toboggan slides and under the ground in caves! A very good and tiring time was had by all. Managed to scribble & doodle a few sketches at the end of each day whilst the children wrote up their experiences in daily journals. Back to reality and 'proper' school tomorrow - though we have got a week of art activities pencilled in - hooray!

a is for...

In celebration of another sale of my unique, how to draw booklet - 'A is for Art' - a recent page of sketches from my pocket moleskine - A is for...pigeon!

half term hol

Just spent the last few days at our 'chateau' finishing off the tiling. Didn't have time for the grouting - will save that pleasure for the summer hols! Made a nice therapeutic change from filling in tick sheets and marking.

the last of the clay

Today we looked at Giacometti for inspiration and, using a pipe cleaner armature, tried to create small figures in a similar style by pressing on clay. Not sure they'll survive the drying process but they looked good when freshly made!

A page from my sketchbook - being a Northern lad I penned a couple of pigeon fanciers;

even more clay!

Seem to be on a sculpting binge lately - must be something to do with the tactile nature of clay. We started with a simple thumb pot (pinch pot) and went from there.

frogs painted

After looking at images on the internet, we painted our clay frog 'sculptures' today. Glad to say that only a few pieces broke off during the drying process.