ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 7TH JULY 2025

The group had fun discussing what a ferry is and where it might go.  The Infants drew a simple ferry together, starting with the sea line first, then adding the different levels of the ferry.  Adding portholes, chimneys and fish in the sea.  They used coloured oil pastels to draw and then painted with watercolour.  The children always love the effect of paint on oil pastels, making sure to use watery paint.

Some brilliant collage to end the term.  Some of the best ever Mrs Hall thinks.  Great contrasting colours.  The children worked really hard to get their pictures finished on time.  They had requested flamingos earlier in the term!  Rupert created a fantastic parrot and Felicity's Kingfisher is beautiful.  We had a quick look at my favourite three contemporary collage artists today: Elizabeth St Hilaire, Nancy Standlee and Stewart Clough.   All 3 create fantastic animal collages.  The children drew their birds on A3 paper, not worrying about detail, and then started to rip and tear different shades of paper to create a feather-like texture. Making sure to glue everything down well.  Mrs Hall loves the way simple collage can be so effective, and she thinks the pictures below are wonderful and all totally unique!

  

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 30TH JUNE 2025

The Infant group had a quick chat about dinosaurs, when they lived and the sort of landscape they lived in, and about their various shapes.   Mrs Hall drew an example on the board and the children then drew their own big bold dinosaurs. They added patterns and spikes and added the horizon line with mountains if they had space.  The dinosaurs were then painted, care was taken over the various shapes and patterns.  The foreground and sky were filled in, and some boulders were added too.   Finally, they outlined in black to make their dinosaurs stand out.  Great, bright, bold, fun creatures!

Heather Galler is a contemporary folk artist from New York and is well known for painting landscapes, flowers and pets.  Her paintings are filled with colour and shape and almost every surface is covered in pattern.  She also paints large-scale murals in offices and restaurants.  After looking at examples of her landscapes and also photos of agricultural landscapes with fields and barns, the children decided whether to have their picture landscape or portrait.  They then chose where they would put their horizon line, low, high or middle of the page and whether it was straight or hilly.  I showed them how to draw 3d buildings, and they added these to the horizon line.   They then added trees, and a big sun.  We talked about perspective and vanishing points and I showed the children how to draw the lines of the field to create depth to their pictures.  Mrs Hall was so impressed with their confident drawing.   Once they had drawn in pencil, they traced over with sharpies, rubbed out the pencil and then added colour with watercolours.  We layered up the water colours to add different tones.  They drew great patterns and used lots of lovely bright colours.

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 23RD JUNE 2025

Some brilliant drawing and painting today.  The children looked at the flowers and the shape of their petals and I showed the children how to draw the vase first, add the table, then add small circles for the flower centres and finally the petals.  Stems and leaves were also added.   Once the flowers were drawn, the children painted the flowers in warm colours, then added the green stems.  They painted the table, vase and background with various colours mixed with white.    I encouraged them to use long brush strokes and to smooth out any lumpy bits.

Berthe Morisot was one of the three great dames of Impressionism, working at the same time as artists such as Manet and Monet.    She exhibited at the Paris Salon numerous times.   She came from a wealthy family and therefore was schooled at home and had tutors in many subjects, including art.  Very few women became painters in the 1800s.   The group discussed Impressionism again and how groundbreaking it was at the time and how the painters painted the everyday objects and activities around them.   Morisot, like Mary Cassatt and Marie Braquemond, painted a lot of family scenes. Most of her paintings show women and children. She used quick brush strokes in the Impressionist style and preferred light colours.  She also drew beautiful vases of flowers, which we emulated today.

Rather than outlining with black at the end, they started the other way around and painted the vase and flowers first in black paint.   Quite a brave step and mastered by everyone!!  They painted on coloured card, which I had cut down to a square shape.  Once the outline was done, they painted the table with the left-over black on their brushes and added white!   Flowers were painted yellow, orange, red and pink with white added.  Double dibbing and thick short brush strokes!  Green leaves were then added.  They also brushed excess paint from their flowers and leaves onto the background, which then created a great background colour when mixed with white.

SUMMER TERM NETBALL CLUB

Our Junior pupils have been enjoying netball training with Play Netball this term.

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 16TH JUNE 2025

Some wonderfully regal kings and queens today. The infant children had a lot of fun creating their portraits.  The children used a template for the crown first and then added a U-shape for the face using oil pastels.  They discussed where the eyes should go, halfway down, ears too, and added noses and mouths too.   They looked at how the neck is almost as wide as the head and that the shoulders are a lot wider.  We mixed skin colour using pink, yellow and white, not straight pink.  The same for the hair; a couple of colours are used to create good hair tones.  The crowns were painted gold and then the background block painted.   The eyes were painted in, eyelashes and brows were added using a very small brush, noses and mouths too.   Finally, they outlined in black to make everything stand out.  

Elspeth McLean is an award-winning artist whose innate love of colour and detail has evolved into a unique style of painting she describes as “Dotillism”.  She creates her intensely colourful and intricate artworks entirely out of dots created with acrylic paint and a paintbrush.  Her refined technique has grown and expanded into the vibrant, precise and soul-engaging artworks she creates today.  The group discussed the composition and the use of certain colours for different areas of the picture.  All warm colours for the sun and cool colours for the hills and sea if they were doing a landscape.  Keeping a tight circle was the objective with the circular patterns.  Using only earbuds, they painted their pictures brilliantly.  We worked out where to put the basic shapes first - sun, hills, sea and clouds or circle and then filled the paper with coloured dots!  Their patience paid off - wonderful colourful results below!

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 9TH JUNE 2025

After a discussion last week about what the Infant children are learning about at school, they requested that we do a jungle picture.  They drew an ambitious monkey picture, and they all did so well.

They started by drawing the face halfway down the page and then added the head and ears.   They used black oil pastels, always trying to press hard.  They also added the body, legs, arms and paws hanging onto the branch, as well as the branch.  They all decided what expression their monkey would have.  Most chose Happy Monkeys not Grumpy Monkeys.  They added fur with brown oil pastels and short markings.   Once the monkey was complete, they added green leaves and vines to the background.

They painted using a palette of water colours: brown for the monkey and green for the leaves, blue for the background, using a variety of shades.

Great results, full of character! 🐵

This week the Junior Art Club learnt about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who was inspired by Mexican popular culture.  She was considered a surrealist painter and was best known for her self-portraits.  She was born in 1907 and died in 1954.

 

The group spent a few minutes discussing various art movements and what they all mean - Mrs Hall often talks about Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Pop Art, etc.  They also talked about proportions and how to lay out a portrait - this time they folded the paper to help get the eyes, nose, ears and hair line in the right place.   This also helped to draw the neck and shoulders in proportion.  The children used oil pastels to draw and colour in, smudging two colours together to get a good skin tone.   They added earrings, necklaces and hair combs to finish off their Frida portraits.  At the end of the lesson, they cut out their portraits and stuck them on a paint-splattered bright background to really emulate a Frida Kahlo portrait!   

  

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 2ND JUNE 2025

A lovely sticky session today for the Infant Club making cat and rabbit faces.  We discussed how to simply draw a cat or a rabbit's face, circles and pointy ears for cats or pear-shaped and long ears for rabbits, and eyes on the side of the head.  The children all drew confidently with a black oil pastel, lots of great ears.   They then set about collaging their animals using mixed colours of precut pieces of recycled coloured paper.   Those that had time did their backgrounds, which looked great - we used map book paper which is easy to stick down quickly.  They added black eyes, noses and whiskers, giving each animal its own character.  Great bright, colourful pictures.

The Junior Club learnt all about African artist Joseph Amedokpo.    He is from Togo in Western Africa and studied art in Nigeria.    His art is full of bright colours and abstract shapes and designs.  The themes of his artwork are focused on African traditions and culture.  Recently, he gained worldwide recognition when he was asked to design laptop covers for a well-known computer company.  The group discussed patterns, lines, shapes and creating unity in a picture through repetition. The children drew confidently with Sharpies straight on to A3 paper.  Starting with basic shapes, outlining and then adding dissecting lines across the paper.  They made some lines thicker than others and then added patterns and their names to the design.   They then painted with pan watercolours, creating the brilliant paintings below.

  

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 19TH MAY 2025

This week we experimented with double-loading paintbrushes to create a more painterly effect.  I put a large bowl of colourful fruit in the middle of the room, and we discussed how artists often practice their painting techniques by using a still life as their subject.  We learnt about the painter Georges Rouault 1871-1958, who was inspired by the bright colours of the Fauves and Expressionists - the likes of Matisse and Van Gogh. His mother encouraged his love of art and in 1885 he started an apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer.  This influenced his artwork in his later years with his use of heavy black lines and rich glowing colours, making his paintings look like stained-glass windows.  We emulated this style by first drawing the composition with pencil and then painting the fruit bowl by double or triple loading the paintbrush and allowing the paint to mix on the paper.    I was keen for the children to use a lot of paint and use the length of the brush strokes to show the shape and solidity of the fruit.   Outlines were painted in black paint and the stained-glass window panes filled in the background.  The children tackled the busy and complicated still life with confidence today. 

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 12TH MAY 2025

The children all drew fantastic turtles and painted really well.   The group had a quick discussion about turtles and tortoises and where they live.  Mrs Hall showed them how to draw a turtle with a watery seaweed background, and they then drew their own.  The children drew really confidently using different warm-coloured oil pastels for the turtle, making sure to press hard.  They created fantastic patterns on the turtle shells and even managed to draw the seaweed behind the turtles with cooler green oil pastels, some added a few little fish and bubbles.  They used vibrant liquid watercolours to paint with, making sure their paint brushes were wet all the time.  They loved the way the paint ran off the oil pastel! We added some sprinkles of salt on the watery sections to add texture and absorb some of the water.   

The group looked at Rex Ray, a prolific and brilliant artist who easily crosses the divide between commercial design and fine art and between digital and handmade art.  He is famous for his fine art collage work on paper, canvas and resin boards.  We looked at examples of his work and discussed the shapes and colours he used, and then they chose  a piece of square-coloured card and then selected a variety of papers – tissue paper, painted paper, decorated or just plain paper, and decided on colours either to use contrasting colours or to use analogous (similar) colours.  Mrs Hall encouraged the children to layer up the paper and to repeat their patterns, adding layers of patterns too.  They worked out their designs and then cut and stuck everything thing down with glue and then added a final layer of glue on top so that they will have a shiny appearance when dry.

ART CLUB WEEK COMMENCING 5TH MAY 2025

The group looked at Paul Klee today, who is now considered one of the most inventive artists of the 20th Century.  He loved experimenting and exploring colours to express how he felt or to tell a story.  He was very inventive and musical!  A lot of his pictures were created on his kitchen table and so they are quite small.  After learning a few facts about him and looking at his inspiration (Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism!) and his actual paintings, the children tackled their own pictures.   The club discussed all the different shapes and the children confidently drew their own castles – using squares, triangles, rectangles, diagonal lines and some curves.   Not forgetting the circle for the sun! They drew in pencil first and then traced over with Sharpie.  Once the drawing was complete, colour was added using liquid water colour.

Using black oil pastel on coloured card and a palette of only green, brown, black and white, the Infant group began by drawing the koala, first step by step and then adding the tree trunk and leaves.  They talked about the balance of the picture, how the trunk and leaves at the top balanced the picture.   They then talked about double-dipping the paint brush and mixing the colours on the paper, rather than in the palette, and also how to make shades of grey.  They painted the leaves first, dipping into green and white and then the trunk, dipping into brown and white.   The koala's ears and bib were next in pale grey and then the head, rest of body and arms were darker grey.  This was actually quite tricky for the younger ones, but everyone managed amazingly!  The teacher always encourages pupils to paint backwards and forwards and not around in circles and to smooth out the bumps.  They painted the characteristic nose with black paint and outlined the eyes, face and body, which is really tricky, but they all managed so well!  The leaves and tree trunk were also outlined.  

JUNIOR ART CLUB 29/04/2025

Junior Art Club had a fun session creating a Yvonne Coomber Flower meadow.

After looking at examples of her work and learning about her, the group set about painting the backgrounds, using watered-down paint to create a graded effect.   Yellow suns were printed first, and then we flicked green and blue colours using toothbrushes before using lollipop sticks to print grasses and stems.  Flowers were added in warm colours using ear buds, keeping the dots big and thick.  Doubling and tripling up some of the colours.  They gave the paintings a final flick of paint.  Great results below!