Primary Colours: Teaching Art from the Start

Sharing an old blog post which I revisited with my own fifth class this month.

We have spent September, October and November developing our drawing and painting skills through a variety of lessons and activities.

As we were learning about The Renaissance in November we decided to paint our own interpretations of the great 'Mona Lisa,' to display all we have learned about proportional drawing, colour mixing and painting techniques such as shading, blending our colours, and adding texture.

Perhaps you have a unit on The Renaissance coming up? If so have a look at the detailed lesson outline in my blog post.

As my 5th class had done a lot of work on developing their drawing and painting skills before this lesson, they completed this painting independently with little teacher input on their drawing and painting. Only helping when it was requested 😊

https://teachingartfromthestart.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/mona-lisa-portraits/

What child (or adult) wouldn't want to experiment and make their own paint?!

Great idea from Art Classes with Caroline Keane. Keep an eye on her Facebook and Instagram; she has shared loads of really great art activities and ideas that focus on using materials that are easily found around the home!

Perfect for Lock Down! Now excuse me I'm off to make some paint 😆

I hope everyone is keeping safe and well at home during the craziness we’ve all found ourselves in.

I’ve seen so many educational companies, and art education pages giving suggestions on how to spend some of our isolation time creatively so here’s another little activity to keep ourselves and our children entertained for a little while:

𝕎𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘

Before the sudden school closures my class and I were learning all about South America. We examined some South American textiles and began to create weaves of our own. We didn’t get them finished, but the children took them home and have been keeping me updated on their progress via our virtual classroom and I have received some lovey pictures of the finished products which I’ve shared below!

Creating a weave is a great activity for a time like this – you don’t need much equipment, it isn’t a quick activity so can keep your children occupied for days, it’s craft based, and it develops fine motor skills and concepts of pattern.

Along with these photos I have included a link to a set of illustrated instructions, which briefly outlines the steps for creating a weave. You can download these instructions for free here:

https://mash.ie/product/weaving/

All you need is a piece of card, some wool/ribbons/paper/ strips of fabric/ material from around the house, a scissors, ruler and a pencil and your set!

Feel free to share any photographs of your weaves in the comments below. This is the perfect isolation activity to keep us all happy, occupied and safe 𝔸𝕋 ℍ𝕆𝕄𝔼!

Stay Safe and happy weaving x

Colour Theory Time!

We extended our knowledge of primary and secondary colours and learned what tertiary colours are - the colour you achieve when you mix a primary colour and a secondary colour together.

We then mixed our own secondary and tertiary colours and painted our individual colour wheels.

The children love learning art theory and techniques! Next up - tints and shades.

As you may have noticed, things have been rather quiet here at 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠: 𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴𝑟𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡

I'm finishing up my Masters in Visual Arts Education this year which means carrying out my own Research within the field and writing up my thesis based on it. So unfortunately my Blog and page will be taking a little hiatus - but don't worry I plan to come back bigger and better with the new knowledge and expertise I've gained over the past 2 years. 🎨😄

As my last post, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑤𝑎𝑦, here's a look at the collaborative art project pupils from Junior Infants to Sixth class have completed entitled 𝑆𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴𝑚𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠. 🦋

Every child in the school painted their own butterfly to represent their uniqueness & individualism within our school community, while the children from 3rd to 6th class had an opportunity to experiment with sculpture making techniques by using modelling wire and modroc to create a 3-D base onto which to mount our butterflies.

It is such a wonderfully, personal piece of art which the children had so much involvement in, to have in our school for the years to come.

Our collection of Single line Self Portraits which we finished today!

The children from 3rd & 4th class used carbon paper placed underneath a photograph of themselves, to transfer their single line portrait as they drew around their photographs without lifting their pencil from the page.

This way we were really able to concentrate on the concept of line, and became aware of all the different qualities and types of line that combine to make our faces!

We looked at and discussed the work of Dutch artist Salventius, and did lots of preparatory mark making & line work in our sketchbooks prior to completing these.

I'm trying to encourage my pupils this year not to be intimidated by drawing and that all it is a series of mark makings and lines that can possibly, but not necessarily, join together to create a bigger picture.

We're going to create some single line portraits tomorrow to practice this concept and what better way to prepare than to do one myself!
Single line portrait of my late, wonderful Granny ❤

Happy Easter Holidays 🐥🐰

Let's start the holidays off with these bright, positive daffodil still lives from my 2nd & 3rd class 🌼

We are lucky enough to have a beautiful garden in our school abundant with daffodils and spring flowers, where we went for our initial inspiration and sketches.

After exploration with shape, line and colour in our sketchbooks outdoors we came back inside and transferred our knowledge to create these beautiful paintings.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable, well-earned break!

Have a look at the collages we made today inspired by our work on China!

Through demonstrations we discussed the techniques of collage such as cutting, tearing, folding, layering, overlapping imagery and pasting.

The children chose the pictures they wanted from a selection of images and then they set to work ✂️

Top Tip when making collages - don't give out the glue too soon as some eager beavers may begin sticking things down too hastily.

A lot of the fun with collage is allowing the children to play with the composition of their piece. By moving the images around they get to see what images they like best, and where!

Feeling guilty for neglecting my page and Blog of late! Who would have known working full time and studying part time would consume so much time and energy?! 😆

Here are some colour wheel umbrellas on a rainy day to instill some brightness into our Januaries!

After exploring the colour wheel we depicted it on an umbrella using oil pastels. We also used white oil pastels to go over our puddles and rain drops, before painting over it with blue, navy and purple watercolour washes!

The wax resist and the blending of tonal washes is quite effective in conveying those good old January Blues! 😅☔️

Christmas Glass Paintings from my Junior Infants last year! 🎄

Christmas Glass Paintings This is a lovely Christmas Art lesson, which results in a very special keepsake for the children in your class to give their parents Christmas morning. As always, I tried and tested this lesson wit…