karen logan: summer term - years 2 & 4 at drew primary

Monday, 30 May 2016

summer term - years 2 & 4 at drew primary

Another half term has flown and four classes at Drew have created AMAZING art. Y2 inspiration was provided by One Night, Far From Here, a beautifully poetic book about creatures and their habitats, the children were fascinated as we traveled the world from the Russian Tiaga to the Amazon rainforest. We drew, painted, learned basic colour theory, printed onto paper and acetate, laminated sparkly collages and created animal masks.

One Night, Far From Here contains cleverly printed transparent pages which layer to reveal and create depth - so (of course!) the idea of the art sandwich was born! The children's final piece layered a painted fabric background, a printed acetate sheet and a laminated drawing decorated with sparkles, paper clipped together to form a book-like artwork that the children loved.

Sometimes, at the beginning of our lessons children would quietly tell me they remembered words like acrylic, acetate, laminate, words as poetic as the book itself.

I took a deep breath before challenging the y4 classes to sew! I was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers is a book with an old-fashioned feel, of unkind treatment of children, dubious Victorian Sideshows and fairytales... Children's faces were transformed using school photographs and collage cut from images of rats, we created posters to advertise these fearsome rat children - studying vintage fonts, experimenting with line and ink and finally mastering running stitch, button stitch and blanket stitch to produce rat embroideries.

What I asked of the y4 children wasn't easy, especially sewing, but they tried and persevered, the more able stitchers assisting their classmates. The lessons were chaotic but embroideries emerged and some children surprised themselves with new found skills, a couple of children who had previously struggled shone and achieved. The teachers also got to brush up on their sewing skills!!!