Mrs Crosbie's New Coat

 Its not often that I get to draw with the infant department but when I do its such a treat.  To try and get some of these pupils to add bodies, legs and hands to their figures I arrived in my shiny new coat and creeper boots!  

And this is what they made of me!

I folded up the paper into three so the children were encouraged to see where the head, body and legs were to go, and we did each bit a stage at a time to give them confidence.

  

Yes I really do look like this!

Could you GET any more colour?

Sometimes colour theory can be such a task.   And Class teachers are soon expecting Christmasy or wintery stuff for the walls - too early!  So I devised a colour wheel with a snow flake design.

The class were given a  folded 1/6 of a circle (yes more maths), and cut a simple snowflake segment.  this was used  as a template to draw a complete snowflake.  (The children thought that they could reuse the template to make reindeer antlers.)

Primary colours are added then a secondary colour placed correctly, finally further variations of those colours, added in the negative spaces.  i.e. yellow/green and blue/green.

A little bit of cutting round the edge emphasises the pattern.

Even the messy ones look great!

THE BIG CIRCLE

One of my P1/2 classes made these "Big Circles" they painted large concentric circles using primary and secondary colours, and white.   Sometimes allowing the colours to mix and adding the occasional bit of pattern.

When they were finished and dry the circles were cut into 4 (yes introducing fractions!) and the sections shared and reformed.  Cheery aren't they?

Bring on the Snow!

I may regret this but if have promised this class that painting these landscapes will make it snow!   Its not a lie, it will snow......eventually. 

These 6, 7 and 8 year olds are learning all about electricity.   They now know that they can create a sense of distance within a landscape.   We "wired"  the art work together with wool which was just a bit of fun.

COME ON THE SNOW!!!!!!    WE ARE WAITING!!!! 

  

Drawing project - loose ends - tied up?

The very last of my drawing exercises.  Too good not to share. 

Incredibly most of these children are only 9 and 10 years old, such confidant drawings.   They are really showing an ability to translate observation into three dimensional, realistic, tonal drawings.  What will they be able to achieve in a few years...... watch this space!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING THE WATERCOLOUR?

 We have been working  on these Escher inspired tile patterns for a few weeks now.  The complexity of the designs really surprised me, the children got so much detail in, I was worried that they would be frightened to add colour in case they obliterated it.
 My first instinct was to have the children use coloured pencil to colour a light layer on the repeated pattern, and some did.....and they looked very nice......

But then in the back of a drawer, I found "BRUSHO". ( It probably has many other names in different places)  I thought its watery qualities would be just the thing to use.......  and it was....... 

  

And now I can't put it down   "BRUSHO RULES!"

SAY HELLO TO AUTUMN "BRUSHO" LEAVES

This talented child is only 5!

AND A LITTLE BIT OF HALLOWEEN

Some of me younger classes drew a spooky house first before the blew a tree shape

And they all enjoyed spraying the watercolour with the toothbrushes, although we did have a few sprayed the wrong way and had spotty faces for the rest of the day!

Purple Haze

 

I had a lovely day last week at Isla Primary School.   Isla Primary is a tiny rural school housed in a brand new timber framed building within a varied often remote community in the Angus hills and glens.  Very often their needs are challenging, exciting and inspiring!  

I found myself working with the children to a brief.  We had three canvases, 32 children (from 4 - 12) and a staff room that needed cheered up.   Oh, and the colour scheme was purple!

We splattered, swirled, printed splodged and spotted paint and ink on every conceivable variation of purple: mauve, lilac, heather, dark, light.   On black, purple and white paper.  Cut hundreds of circles and attached them to the canvas, adding a button on top.

Some days in my schools I am not the only specialist visiting, in fact we had an archer and a cake decorator instructing too!  

So the inspiration was easy, we created targets, or were they cup cakes?!

At The Dentist

Observational drawings.

One of my favourite infant drawing lessons, great results every time.   

Even pupils with the most basic of drawing skills produce exciting, detailed and well observed drawings.   These examples were drawn by 4, 5 and 6 year olds.   I love black pen drawings.

The children start off by drawing a large circle for the mouth.  This seems to make them think differently about drawing a face, approaching it from a different aspect, it makes them listen to instructions and observe more closely.  Although some still draw the nose and eyes within the confines of the mouth because it is a familiar face shape, most end up making really true representation of the subject.