Grassy Scene with Insects
I had another lovely day in the art room creating Calendar Art for this year’s fundraising event. Karli’s Year Five and Six class joined me today to make a scene of vibrant insects nestled in long grass. Later on in the year families will have the opportunity to order cards, diaries, sketchbook and calendars with their child’s beautiful artwork on it.
I modelled both of the main components of today’s artwork for the students and then they chose in which order they would like to complete the work. One task was to prepare the grassy green background. They did this by by painting the entire page in yellow and then layering two different greens over top. They then used the paint scrapers to add another layer of texture. Later on in the day the students glued ripped pieces of green paper on top to make wavy, textured grass.
The second piece of art was a variation on on the pottery technique, sgraffito. Sgraffito means ‘to scratch’ in Italian. It is the process of adding glazes to pottery and then scratching them off to reveal contrasting colours, patterns and textures underneath. The students coloured their paper with warm coloured pastels, working hard to fill in the white spaces. Next they painted black acrylic paint over top. I like to add a drop of dishwashing liquid to the black paint to help it scratch off easier.
The students looked at images of garden insects and drew plans for their own critters. Some students imagined brand new species, others did observational drawings of real mini-beasts. Either way, the students had a great deal of fun scratching back the black paint off to reveal the bright colours below. One group of students described the process as ‘very satisfying.’ I definitely agree and I think that they finished artworks are equally, if not more, satisfying.
