the Vikings are coming!

The y5's have completed their Viking longship sculptures. The hulls are made from terracotta clay - using the coil method, which simulates the wooden planking. The mast and spars are wood (dowel & lollipop stick) whilst the sail is a piece of cotton. They even made some crew members from short lengths of paper dowel. Size? About 15cm stem to stern.

today

Today in Y1 we painted the clay fish. We might give them a coat of PVA when they're fully dry just to give them a bit of protection/shine. They will be mounted in under sea dioramas eventually - more of which anon.

 

 

In Y4 we completed our paper engineering - lever mechanism pieces. This one, when the lever is pulled/pushed, operates and moves all 3 oars simultaneously. Next week we're moving on to cams!

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.

the vikings are coming

Yesterday in Y4 we finished off our Viking ships - clay hulls (coil pot method), wooden spar (lollipop stick) & mast (thin dowel), cotton sail, thread rigging, card shields.

 

 

 
We've glued them to bases - here they are drying;

clay 3

 In Y4, as part of their study into Vikings we made some longships. We adapted the coil method that they had previously used when they were Y3's (see a post recently for the current Y3's ref. Greek pots). The lollipop sticks will be the stern post and prow (with attached card dragons head). We smoothed the insides and kept the coils showing on the outside to represent the wooden planking.
we'll paint them when they're dry, add cotton sails and embroidery thread rigging.

 

 

Meanwhile, I've managed to do a few small mixed media pieces. These are destined for either my Etsy or Folksy shops, or I might even dabble with the behemoth that is ebay!

 



 

Collage, acrylics, ink & crayon on canvas board, 13 x 18cm.

recent doings

More card model try outs - seem to have got a bit of a thing for these at the moment;


All constructed from the same basic template.

And on my 'painting table' (ooh, sounds grand when you say it like that) - 'Off t'match' ;

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.