Geometric

 This was a fabulous session of art.

 Each child had to trace a shape and then using a ruler ( we seldom use rulers in art), We drew lines from corner to corner. The variety of shapes created inside the hexagon were then painted.

 Using colour and black and white the children created these gems

Art with the community

A couple of weekends ago I had the privileged of sharing art with a bunch of grade 10 teenage girls from Hanover Park on the Cape Flats.  It was a workshop run for a fantastic NGO , ISEEU, which seeks to build into the lives of young teen girls and give them hope and direction in an otherwise very bleak and broken world.

I jumped at this opportunity when offered.

These young women have never ever had the experience f creating art before. This was their very first time.

ISEEU was working on the theme of "Values" and so I plugged in to this. We began by exploring values and what they are and why we need to think through what our very own values could be. Linking to this , we then began an art lesson on self portraits.

Given that these young girls were giving drawing a go for the very first time, I was encouraged by their willingness to , "give it a go ", despite their obvious fears expressed in really laughing at their own attempts. 

It was a learning experience for both these lovely girls and for me too!

Blessings to ISEEU for the work you are doing.

Lets face it!

 THis was a lesson using clay and some sharp utensils 

 The children had to first design their own mask after looking at a variety of African masks.

 The children had to make the clay mask as close to their design as possible

 They are a delightful match.

It worked very well getting the kids to draw their mask design first and then create a mask in clay from that original design. it gave them a place to work from and a chance to plan their ideas and put them down on paper.  I would definitely use this method again.

Birds of a feather

 This was one of my absolutely favourite art classes this term. We created paper mache birds by using plastic bottles filled with some sand to stabilise them. Then we  created a bird base shape using tin foil and or paper and masking tape. The children used many pictures of different birds as inspiration for their creation.

 This project spanned two weeks as the first bit was the messy papermache  bit and then the second was the painting the bird bit.

 The end product was simply beautiful.

A collection of art

I am writing a post on this year of art at The Studio. 

I am going to try an give a broad brushstroke picture of this year with the children.

we Began with a pencil drawing of wooden toys. I love to offer children an opportunity to draw something that they might not have drawn before. It really means that they have to look very carefully at the object.

These are some of our upside down drawings! They are absolutely delightful.

We have continued to focus on the 7 elements of art and especially using line and value.

These children range from 6 and 7 to 14 years old.

I have so enjoyed sharing pencil drawings with them:)