Art Club for years 3 and 4 will be held in Woodpecker Class.  Your lovely children will be ready for collection at 4:30 at the door of Woodpecker Class (year 4) on the side playground.

Describe ‘n’ Doodle

This week, our artists had a go at playing a game we’ve called Describe ‘n’ Doodle. Working in pairs, one person was given a print of a famous piece of artwork which they they had to describe to their partner, who, unable to see the picture, translated the description into their own version of the artwork.  There was some gorgeous and productive teamwork happening, which produced some interesting and often particularly accurate results…

Sound Creatures

Continuing our exploration of different ways to visualise sound, this week in Art Club we have been using audio prompts to guide our drawing of a mysterious creature.  Using the 5 different tracks as inspiration, we had the option of choosing to combine our visions into one fantastical being or draw 5 separate figures, each conjured up in response to the noises we were hearing.  As you might expect, a marvellous menagerie unfolded...

The Music Looks Better With You!

In Monday Art Club, we’re going to be looking at different ways to visualise sound.  As an introduction to this idea, we had a look at a few different websites where we could make electronic music accompanied by moving images.  Although super-safe technology scuppered some of our attempts, thankfully our favourite website’s name WAS down and it DID come in and much fun was seemingly had by all. Patatap.com works best with touch screen devices, but Art Club explored the site with the school’s Chromebooks and, as well as discovering lots of different ways to generate music and images, some of the group even devised a smart way of noting down on paper how to play their tunes.  In addition to Patatap, some of us also had a play around with a basic online mixing desk, producing some sweet beats, and the whole group chipped in to a vocal jam on Incredibox.  

In case you want to have a try at home, there are links to the various sites we used (and those we were unable to access) below.  However, Patatap was a clear winner. Art Club recommends that EVERYONE have a go, it’s great:-

Patatap

Incredibox

BeastBox

Tony B Machine

One Motion

We took lots of video footage of our exploits but, as you might expect, they’re a bit noisy!  Here are a couple to give you an idea…

A Close Shave With Some Cracking Creatures!

In Monday Art Club, we've been looking at the work of Richard Webber (a partner in Aardman Animations) and his company, Waaber, who specialise in stop motion animation.  To start with, we've been specifically using the subject of Waaber's still images from his Instagram feed - simple, but expressive modelling clay figures - as inspiration for the basis of telling our own single shot stories.  Art Club members have been modelling for one another to study how they might use the clay to replicate facial expressions and then giving a lot of thought to how they could pose their figures to illustrate a particular narrative AND orchestrating and taking their own photographs with a proper camera.  We've had such fun with them, they've been worked on for many weeks!  Take a look below for some construction shots and a few finished articles...

Spring Term 2025!

We’ve been busy settling in our new members for the spring term; setting up our art books, updating our Spotify playlist and generally getting stuck in with our art work.  So far this term we have made self portraits for the covers of our art books, practised drawing cartoon faces at different angles and had a go at some basic animation by making flip books (to put our cartoon faces to good use).   The flip books have certainly been a challenge and it’s taken a Herculean demonstration of at least 2 of our school values to avoid slam dunking them into the recycling bin whilst tearing our hair out!  They have been labour intensive, to say the least, and as a result we don’t have any photographs to share.  Needless to say, everyone who joined in did a brilliant job - if perseverance were a school value we’d be ticking  that one off too!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Unfortunately, we were unable to finish our excellent Christmas tune in Monday Art Club at our last session of the year, which sadly means that lots of our members didn’t have a turn to contribute to the recording.  If anybody would like to have a go at finishing the tune on their own Soundtrap account, please let Mrs Ashley know and we can arrange for a link to be sent to you to tinker with if you have your own Soundtrap account.  Alternatively, you could have a go at writing some lyrics or even just give it a name. What we managed to put together, after a bit of editing, is shown below for you to enjoy.  

Christmas time, don’t let the bells end!

At this fabulously festive time of year we’ve been working on another awesome art form, our own Christmas song! After doing some (albeit extremely) brief research into what makes a memorable Christmas tune, using an online platform called Soundtrap we’ve been taking it in turns to select different loops to build our number 1 hit. It’s a work in progress, which will require some serious editing before it’s ready for public consumption, but everyone’s been having a great time testing out the different sounds and building up the layers of our track.  We’ll share it once all our musical ducks are in a row, and in the meantime you can see our budding producers mulling over their options below…

The Writing’s On The Wall

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been looking at street art and graffiti and practising our own word art.  As we have learned, many street artists ply their trade with permission from the owners of the walls they bring to life.  However, as Art Club don’t currently have any walls available to decorate without finding ourselves in trouble with Mr Jones or local law enforcement, we have made our own! Take a look at our gorgeous tags (artist signatures, often initials or nicknames) and throws (longer or more detailed than a tag), they could well be the seedlings for some future public “pieces” (larger than throws and with lots of colour and additional art).

Some of us also had a go at using a graffiti generator for inspiration.  If you’d like to have a go at home, click here for a link to the website we used.  Once you’ve chosen a style, typed your name in and generated your tag or throw, you can edit the effects to make it look extra cool!

Arte Del Recuerdo

In Art Club, we’ve been exploring the rich traditions of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a Mexican holiday that celebrates and honors loved ones who have passed away. The children have been learning about the vibrant symbolism and artistry associated with this special day, in particular the iconic sugar skulls (calaveras) and marigolds (cempasuchil), which are believed to guide spirits back to the living world.

Our young artists expressed their creativity by drawing their own sugar skulls, decorating them with bold patterns and colours that are typical of this beautiful celebration.

We’re freeeeeeeeee to collage whatever we, whatever we like, if it’s wrong or right it’s aaaaaalright!

Monday Art Club recently learned a little bit about collage and then set about using various resources to make some of their own.  With absolutely no rules on what should appear on the canvas, everyone made beautifully unique artwork which they have been working on for a few weeks now…

Kate Shaw

Monday and Tuesday Art Club have been looking at the work of Kate Shaw, an Australian artist who uses different paint techniques to make psychedelic landscapes reflected in bodies of water. First of all, we used watercolours to make our sunset backdrops and we then moved on to experiment with different types of marbling to decorate paper which we will use as our landscape features…

Moving Mountains…

Once our marbling was nice and dry, we spent some time cutting out and arranging our landscape features above and below our horizon line to give the effect of reflections in water.  

The Finished Articles…

After a few weeks of working on their artwork inspired by Kate Shaw, Monday Art Club have finished their beautiful pieces.  On Monday afternoon, Mr Jones and Mrs Bowkett popped in for a sneaky peek at the results, now it’s your turn…