Which animals live the habitats of the ocean, desert, Arctic, rainforest and Savannah? How do the animals adapt to survive in their environment? What do living things need in their habitat? These were the questions that Year 2 explored through Art. 

Focusing on the beautiful patterns and stripes of animal skins allowed the children to practise their sketching skills using different media such as pencil, charcoal and coloured pencils. They outlined and shaded using, cross hatching, stippling and smudging to create the stripes, spots and patterns which allows the animal to camouflage in its environment. 

Animal Silhouette

First the children learned about hot and cold colours found in hot and cold habitats and mixed paint to create shades for their backgrounds. Next, they sketched animal outlines. It was important to refine their sketches before cutting them out carefully with scissors to create the silhouette.  Not an easy task!

Habitat boxes 

What a treat to see the enjoyment and fascination with which each child created their habitat box. They first painted the background for the habitat of their choice using their knowledge of hot and cold colours. The next step was to add to the background by collaging different papers and materials, a task in which they were thoroughly absorbed, crafting rocks, glaciers, foliage, coral and the organisms who lived there. Once complete, the children modelled the animal inhabitants from plasticine and had a great time playing with their magical worlds. 

2C and 2H Weaving 

Inspired by the Spider Weaver story, the children in 2C and 2H learned about weaving. They impressed so much with their independence and perseverance in weaving over and under using first paper then wool, raffia and ribbon to represent either animal patterns or hot and cold habitats. 

2A – Tarzan

Inspired by their magnificent Tarzan dance, the children of 2A steered their Art towards exploring the wonderful creatures that are some of our closest animal relatives: gorillas. 

Finding out about the unique personality of each gorilla, the children began by sketching their faces. This meant learning about the proportions of the face and where to position eyes, nose and mouth as well as looking closely at the shape of the head and direction of eye brows. Mr Arnett challenged the children to create the best gorilla face sketch they could by trying again and again to improve their sketches. The finished faces, each unique, seem to have such amazing personalities which the children imagined in different jungle stories.

The next step was to collage the face with grey and black paper as well as the colourful rainforest habitat. This was painstaking work and 2A impressed with their perseverance and determination. 

Finally 2A collaborated to create a whole class mural of Kerchak, a powerful Silverback who would do anything to protect his family. This was a collage on a much larger scale so the children worked in teams on each area of his body and face. They each added flowers, leaves and butterflies bursting out of the rainforest habitat with paint and oil pastel. These were attached with their families during the Arts Celebration to complete this impressive piece. 

Great afternoon, enjoyable and fun. So good to see how hard all the children and staff have worked over the last two weeks. Well done everyone!

2C Arts Fortnight

2H Arts Fortnight

2A Arts Fortnight

5P showed true resilience in facing new challenges and daring to innovate as they explored the emotions and stories captured in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. 

Persevering to refine their modelling skills, they first made plasticine and clay vases and pots. They learned that they had to mould and roll the clay evenly to create stable and even pots and felt rightly proud of the outcomes.

Maze or labyrinth

The children began by exploring the challenges posed by mazes and labyrinths. Labyrinths present the adventurer with a certain and potentially mindful route creating feelings of calm or perhaps entrapment. In navigating a maze, the adventurer faces choices, dilemmas and uncertainty requiring bravery to overcome anxiety and danger. They used different materials to create their own; in some cases it was best to work systematically but often it was exciting to imagine perilous twisting and turning journeys. 

Their outcomes were the result of days of hard work in mapping out the walls, dead ends and loops. They then rolled newspaper to create the walls and used papier maché to secure them. The process was fiddly and messy: it took quite a while so well done to everyone. Finally they experimented with different shades of colour by gradually adding black to their chosen base colour. The children accentuated the depths of their labyrinths with acrylic paint by using darker and darker shades as the adventurer got closer to the centre. Take a look at the dangers the hero faced along the way!

Hero or monster

The children finally created artwork to depict the hero or monster that inspired their maze in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The chaotic colours of the background portrayed tormented minds and courageous spirits using acrylic paint and the angular figures were added in chalk pen.

At the Arts Fortnight celebration, 5P shared their experiences of mazes and monsters with their families. They impressed us all with how they had been able to master new skills, using these to create such energetic pieces.

Exploring character flaws in Ancient Greek plays led 5H to draw on and innovate with portrait drawing and 3D sculpture. They started with great ideas and imagination and throughout the fortnight persevered to adapt, overcome obstacles and keep pushing to achieve their intended effect. Thoroughly immersed in these creative processes, they impressed us with their calm enjoyment and team work. 

5H  relished the opportunity to design and create vases depicting Ancient Greek myths. They were ambitious in considering the function and form of their vessel as well as the decoration. Some were designed to carry olive oil or water, others grapes or grains. Shape, size, handles, spout and stopper were all considered. 

Ancient Greek artists were skilled and respected and 5H certainly took inspiration from them. Inspired by the myth of King Midas, their designs were created using gold, black and white acrylic paint.

Golden masks

Captivated by the storytelling of the Ancient Greeks, 5H learned about how masks were used in Ancient Greek theatre to allow each actor to take on different personas. They confidently recalled how to sketch the proportions of a face and then designed their own Greek mask persona with exaggerated features such as eye brows, mouth and hair. It was incredible to see how the shape and direction of the eye brows altered an expression and created a different mood.

Transferring these faces onto a balloon, they then began to apply Modroc to one side of a balloon to create their mask. This was painstaking and tricky and the children quickly learned that they needed to collaborate. With a lot of care and patience, the masks were complete and left to dry. 

The features were created later with more Modroc or cardboard with some dramatic effects.

Finally, the masks were painted gold and the children added shading and depth using charcoal and chalk. The cracks running across 5H’s Golden masks were a nod to the myth of King Midas whose greed led him to wish for the Golden touch. He was mortified when he touched his daughter who instantly turned to gold; a hairline crack running across her immortalised face.

In the studio, 5H shared their Golden masks and created personas with their families and friends. They gave assured, dramatic and confident performances of the myth of King Midas and choreographed their Midas-inspired dance, based on the music of Aretha Franklin.

“The performance was amazing. I loved all the art work in the art studio. You can see all the effort the teachers and children have put in.”

“I enjoyed the play. There was great coordination and it looked very fun. The art studio is a lovely environment that I have enjoyed looking in before. The exhibit was fun, creative and engaging showcasing a creativity in the children that is fun to engage with.”

“Great performances by the children, they put in a tremendous amount of work. Kudos to the teachers for their instruction and guidance that helped to realise a great afternoon of activities. The kids had a great deal of confidence, which is great to see.”

What a wonderful start to our Arts Fortnight process this year! 5LS have been thoroughly absorbed in exploring Ancient Greek mythology and it was a treat to see their pieces exhibited in the Art Studio. 

Researching Ancient Greek clay vessels, they discovered that paintings of myths on the vases allowed these incredible tales to be passed down over thousands of years. Setting out to create their own vases and pots, they first experimented with their design and practised their coiled pot techniques using plasticine. This was challenging and led some to change their design. We were all thrilled with the outcomes and excited when it came to making them in clay.

The children had remembered the technique of adding each layer using cross hatching and slip and were able to create shaped pots with layers getting larger and smaller. 5LS really impressed us with their care and perseverance. 

Once dried, we painted the pot with acrylic paint in Burnt Sienna or Yellow Ochre acrylic paint to recreate the colours of terracotta. 

The next stage was creating a design with pictures and greek patterns and painting these onto the pots. Just like the artists from Ancient Greece, they needed great control and care with fine brushes and markers. 

Modroc torches

The children were captivated by the myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the sun to give to the people. Fire allowed humans to care for themselves with food and warmth but also to forge weapons and wage war. Zeus was so angry with Prometheus that he condemned him to be chained to a mountain for eternity where he was pecked at daily by a vulture. 

The children seemed not to mind the gory details!

Modroc was another sculpting material which was great fun but needed care and patience. The children added designs and patterns using string and then painted the torches. They look just wonderful. 

It was a special moment to ‘light’ the torches with flame (and a flickering tea light) during the Celebration afternoon and to share all our hard work with our families.