Te Manu Tukutuku
Amy’s Year Two and Three class came to the art room today to make beautiful painted paper kites inspired by manu tukutuku (kites) and Matariki. They had a great time experimenting with colour mixing and painting techniques.
This year I have decided to get a head start on the artworks for this year’s Calendar Art fundraiser. Normally we would do Calendar Art in term three but getting them finished earlier will free up the end of the year for other art projects. Later in the year families will have the opportunity to buy calendars, diaries, notebooks and cards with their child’s lovely artwork printed on them.
The first part of today’s lesson was to prepare the painted paper for collaging later in the day. For the first piece of paper the students mixed purple paint and then used the paint scrapers to scratch into the painted surface.
For the second piece they painted paper white and added red paint with swirling brush movements. They were excited to see the colours change into pink! Finally, the last piece of paper was painted green and splattered with yellow paint over the top.
The students prepared the background of their artwork by painting it sky blue and using a dry brush stippling technique to create clouds. Some students opted to paint the night sky, I love this creative touch!
We read books and watched videos about manu tukuku, like this one from the Tales from Te Papa series. Next the students practiced drawing and cutting out kite shapes. There were lots of mistakes which meant that there was lots of learning too!
Finally the students cut out the painted paper pieces into manu tukutuku and glued them to their backgrounds. I modelled how to arrange the colours, shapes and sizes of kites across the artworks so that artworks looked balanced.
Unfortunately we ran out of time to finish the lesson completely as the painted paper took longer to dry than expected. But Amy’s class will join me in the art room again next term when we will add the finishing touches to the manu tukutuku.
Keep an eye out for the updated post next term that will have the finished artworks. In the meantime, take a look a few of the works in progress below. I can’t wait to see them when they are completed!
