Friday 20 September 2013

Fantastic Feathers

First term, and a three week block of observational drawings.  Not quite finished but too good not to share!
I wanted to get the pupils to really look at details of small, unfamiliar objects.  Feathers seemed to be the perfect thing.  We started off looking at the linear patterns and recreated the feathers with soft pencils and water soluble crayons.









Peacock feathers next, what a gift!  Looking at colour and pattern we used a mixture of pens, watercolour, water soluble graphite and soft pencil.  New words now added to our vocabulary include iridescent, rainbow like.....they sure are.  I have offered £1 for every child that includes it in their next story!  Shall I start saving?







I have really enjoyed floating around my schools with armfuls of peacock feathers! 
 Attention seeking behaviour or what?






Some of the infants got involved too, can you spot which drawings are theirs?  




Looking at texture and tone now, with white feathers, chalk and black pen on black paper.  Studies too of the best little spotty Guinea Fowl feathers.  






We drew the feathers twice the size to include the detail and introduce the idea of scale.



Some of the classes used masking fluid with watercolour to try and reproduce the patterns of dots on the Guinea Fowl feathers.



I plan to make these drawings into wee books - next term.... 


16 comments:

  1. These are sooo beautiful! How old were the students you did them with?

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  2. Thank you! most are aged 8-11, but some are younger.

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  3. How would you like to write an article about this for SchoolArts Magazine?

    Nancy Walkup
    Editor, SchoolArts

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  4. How would you like to write an article about this for SchoolArts Magazine?

    Nancy Walkup
    Editor, SchoolArts

    ReplyDelete
  5. Inspiring stuff! I notice item 17 contains a portrait of you, Mrs Crosbie!

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  6. I agree with all the other comments the feather pictures are delightful. The children have recorded so much information about the structure of feathers and made beautiful art.

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  7. These are beautiful Maureen. I have the same wee guinea fowl feathers. Now I know what they are! I love the progression into feather books.

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  8. Is there anyway you could send me the link or file for your Space Invader/1-pt perspective lesson?

    mizz4sh-e.weebly.com

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  9. What a perfect subject for still life and getting students to LOOK! Wonderful- I love this idea!
    This also reminded me of a scratch art drawing I made as a teenager in high school of a feather!

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  10. that look so cool
    😃😃😊

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