more elephants

Y3's have been sewing. They've cut and stitched two sides to what is going to be a stuffed hanging decoration.  

textiles

Yesterday in textiles club we finished our padded keyrings - made as Father's day gifts.

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!

riverscapes

This year's textile riverscapes are finished. For some children it was the first time that they had sewn. Here they are temporarily laid out on a table but will soon be mounted on a wall - it might save them getting knocked about!

 

 

Love the flowers on this riverbank - poppies?

 
And I think they've done a cracking job of representing the ripples/river currents on this one.

Each piece is 15cm square. They are primarily made from felt with some managing to add woollen 'pom-pom' bushes. The children used running, applique and cross stitches.

elephants & basketball

 A pic of this years completed embroidered and appliqued Indian elephant pieces. Each square is approx. 20x20 cm. Felt with added beads, buttons and metal washers.

 

 

 

And 'basketball 'bot' ;

 

A5, ink & pencil on paper.

yay!

Today's doodle celebrates a gutsy performance from the lads last night (retro shirt).

 

 

We've also been working hard on, and have nearly finished, our embroidered/appliqued elephant pieces. Stitched flower patterns, beads and bling (small metal washers) have been added.

stitch

A bit more sewing with the y3's today. The embroidered/applique elephant pieces are coming along nicely. Might even decide to make them into small cushions.

 

 

red elephant

We've started to stitch our elephants onto a backing. This was the child's first ever go at sewing - I think they've done a grand job. Pins out, ear on next time.

 

 

get ahead, get a hat

Over the last few weeks our y4's have been busy cutting & stitching felt to make wearable hats. They've used a variety of stitches and techniques to create very presentable headgear - some are even planning to wear them on their Easter holiday!

 

 

 

rivers

We continued to work on our appliqued/embroidered riverscapes today. We made pom-pom bushes in the traditional way using rings of card (although some children found it a bit tricky initially because they made the central holes too large).

 

 

 

 

At the end we laid out some of the pieces on the floor (even though they're not finished yet) just to see how they were looking. Each piece is 15cm square , so this section is about 1 metre long. We think the effect is quite good so far.

 



rivers

In y6 on Friday we started to create stitched/appliqued pieces that, when completed, will be able to be pieced together into a long, collaborative representation of a river course. Each child is making a 15cm square with the river leaving two of the edges at the mid-points. They should fit together so that the river flows from piece to the next.
We made paper patterns, cut the pieces from felt and then sewed them together using both running and 'over' stitches.

 

 

By using different shades of green and blue we are hoping to end up with a whole piece that resembles an aerial view of the countryside.

This is a pic of  'one I did earlier' to show the children what we were after. In the next lesson we'll make pom-pom bushes and add the stitching to the 'river'.

The Globe

We thatched the Globe model today.Various threads, strips of felt, raffia and wools were wrapped and woven around the upper seating units to give an impression of coarse thatch.

 

 

These are the partially completed units temporarily arranged to give an indication of the size when complete.

The whole thing is just about ready for assembling - we've just got the stage left to do!

pachyderms

Today has been 'elephant' day! The youngest ones pasted scrunched up paper onto a heavy card backing in anticipation of assembling the dried pieces into an elephant.

 

 

The Y3's completed their appliqued and embroidered Indian elephant motifs. We stitched on beads and washers (!) for leg jewellery.

doodles, elephants & vikings

A couple of recent sketches. The robot conker one was for a lad in my class - he brought me a conker in (!) so I gave him this pic as a thankyou. Well, the 'bot is playing with a sort of nut, so I'm sure it's within international conkering rules!




It's appliqued & embroidered elephant time again for our Indian topic. We made simple patterns from 3x3 grids.



A colleague is 'doing' Vikings. Did a figure based on the simple 'robot' model that I made ages ago. The blob of glue on the front is 'cos I was rushing it!

Got me to thinking that the basic template could be utilised for a whole host of figures/characters with very little effort.

portraits & bookmarks

Got around to painting our self-portraits (after Warhol) today. Used watercolours. Enterprise club also finished off the felt bookmarks.

Am also feeling a little bit of a 'victim of my own success'! I was told by a publisher today reference my book - 'A is for Art'- that 'you seem to be having success self publishing...why do you feel you need a publisher..?'!! Yes 50+ copies is great but I was hoping that it would show that the idea has fantastic potential given the right backing and promotion.

felt flowers

Been stitching and sewing again today - continuing with our secret (!) mothers day gifts.

They look quite good en masse (hastily thrown into an old pot).

felt stuff!

This week has seen members of the Enterprise club begin making felt bookmarks - we're on a roll after selling all of our phone charms within 2 days!

In yr5 we have started to create 'artificial' flowers ready for mothers day gifts. The children found them a bit difficult but they persevered and hopefully a bunch of them should hide any faults!

We plan to wrap the 'stalks' with wool/string/thread.

pencil monster

The pens and pencils in my class seem to disappear with alarming regularity. Today I got the children to make pencil monsters, as something must be eating all the pens! Felt plushies, stitched and stuffed.

Makes an interesting alternative to boring old pencil cases.