Housekeeping: Toiletries as Art Materials

Besides cardboard, these are some other possible art materials that can be collected free. Hotel toiletries! I usually bring my own toiletries overseas and will collect these from the hotel for use in the art room. To hasten collection, it helps when you get your family to do the same :D They are excellent for doing mark making or paint splatters

Art Class: Possibilities With Papers [Part II]

The children read a poem, Larry the Line, written by Cassie Stephens and we look at art vocabulary related to lines such as horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curves and straight. They were encouraged to manipulate the given pipe cleaners named Larry and incorporate it into their artwork. 

At this point, I would have enough time to assess the children's readiness of using scissors in their next project. The children took a break from cutting and pasting and we learnt simple colour theory by making their own colour wheel and blending the oil pastels. We also revisited the book Mouse Paint that they have read last year.

Colour Wheel

Cleaning their oil pastels

Their final project started with a class discussion of Sculpture. We looked at artist, Han Sai Por's Tetrahedron-tetrahedron Interprenetration (1993) fiberglass sculpture and compare the resemblance of her artwork to origami. Sometimes, the choice of medium is a great consideration depending on the intent or placement of the artwork. So, the children proceeded to make their own self-portraits using coloured papers. Assuming their scissors skills is fine, they can decide on the colour scheme and think in layers and do overlapping. 

This cracks me up a lot!

Art Club: Sky Colour

What would you do when you run out of blue paint? Is blue the only colour of the sky? Art Club P3 pupils are working on a 'mural' after reading the book Sky Colour by Peter H. Reynolds. The children discuss and brainstorm on the possibilities of sky creatures and flying objects.

Art Class: Possibilities With Papers [Part I]

This book by Paul Jackson will change the way you view the plain paper. You can click here to view more techniques. The children look at some examples of paper to form and they did a group challenge to make the most out of cartridge papers. With simple material, they can even extend their learning at home. In subsequent weeks, the children were given decorative edge scissors and coloured papers. Their task is to imagine that they were being shrunk to thumb size and they have to design a play space made of papers. They were encouraged to manipulate the papers into forms and we had discussion about the different areas of play spaces using preposition. 

Art Class: Collaboration VS Cooperation

How do you collaborate with non-art teachers? In my previous school, there was a teacher who wanted to collaborate with the Art department (technically there was only me then) to celebrate National Day. She wanted the whole school to receive an identical SG flag template and fill in colour. The fact that you are using art materials such as colour pencils or oil pastels doesn't mean it is art. Another point that I have observed is that the term collaboration is used quite loosely.

For example, last year, I had the children to create this underwater theme "mural" towards the end of the year. We read the book You Be You by Linda Kranz and everyone created a self portrait in the form of a fish. I had the concept and I put up everyone's work. So, in a way, this was mostly cooperation because the children work on their own fish but they could draw their own ideas. Yes, it was tedious and time consuming to put up the children's work but it wasn't a complex task. Whereas in collaborating work, the outcome is to work together to solve an open-ended, complex task.

I was glad with the process and outcome of this year's collaboration with non-art teachers. The children created post-it mural of 百福图 (Hundred Fu Painting). The Chinese language teachers and I had a discussion before we decided on using pictogram as a springboard in the art lesson. The main idea about making meaning out of Chinese characters is here.

To read more about the difference between collaboration and cooperation, please click here and here.