The Greek Myth ‘Daedalus and Icarus’ provided the hook for 5C’s art in the studio, with the father and son’s flight from the tower engineered by constructing two pairs of wings from bird feathers. ‘Feathers’ inspired our observational drawings and reliefs as well as featuring in their collage pieces.

Cardboard, newspaper, and PVA glue created the feather reliefs. The outline of a feather was drawn onto the cardboard and then by rolling up newspaper strips glued to create the relief.It required dexterity in fine motor skills, perseverance and patience.

Tissue paper was then added to ‘colour’ in the feather by gluing. Finally, the backgrounds were added. 5C successfully ‘sandwiched’ pastel, felt tip, pencil crayon and watercolours to create these.

Dabbing watercolour with tissue, adding alcohol and salt, as well as seeing how oil pastel and wax provides a resist were just some of the explorations 5C did in their sketch books before committing these to their collage pieces.

5C’s Arts celebration on Friday afternoon with parents, grandparents, older siblings and interested adults, incorporated some of our drawing warm ups. These included blind drawing, continuous line drawing and finally an observational drawing of feathers. ‘Therapeutic’ or ‘traumatic’ were some of the adult responses, but it was great to see 5C confidently lead the way!

An appreciation of the skills and knowledge used was then shared as together 5C shared their successes and challenges in the art studio.

The following feedback gives a glimpse of how well received 5C’s Arts Fortnight was:

‘Amazing staff. They gave us such a warm welcome. The Art Fortnight exhibits the beauty and the great effort put into teaching the children. THANK YOU.’

‘Sam has really enjoyed his arts fortnight and is looking forward to expanding his skills with watercolours at home.’

‘Loved the drawing; getting to experience what the children do! Happy and enthusiastic teachers.’

’Lovely session- nice to experience some of what the children did. They love it so much- a lovely afternoon.’

‘What a lovely afternoon we have had! Excellent dance and great to see all the wonderful artwork.’

‘Amy loves the chance to be creative while learning. She is always so excited when it’s the Arts fortnight- one of the highlights of her year. The performance and carousel of activities is wonderful- getting to see their work and be in school.’

‘Amazing performance. Love the interaction in the arts studio. Loved all the art work- amazing.’

‘We love to see what Aubrie has been up to at school. Fab performance. Well done everyone!’

‘Always enjoy coming to Arts Fortnight- the staff and kids have worked so hard.’

‘Really enjoyed the dance and doing the drawing of feathers with Ruby.’

‘Really good artwork and great that the parents could join in.’