Art Blog

November 2021 – A message from Angelica Dass
This week we contacted Angelica Dass to tell her all about the work we have been doing inspired by her Humanae project, and about our exciting plans to create a Summer Art Exhibition of portraits from throughout the town of Thetford.
She replied immediately with a video message for us all:

November 11th 2021 - Remembrance
Our school community have worked together to create a Poppy Art installation dedicated to local soldiers who lost their lives in the World Wars. The poppies cascade from a tree in Sophia’s Garden, which is a special natural space for reflection, located on the school grounds.   

Each poppy was created by a pupil in the school and dedicated to a named Thetford citizen who died in military service, preserving our freedom.  The poppies were made from a variety of re-used materials, fitting in with the sustainability theme of Sophia’s Garden. Families also made poppies at home to add to our installation.

The children named the soldiers and dedicated their poppies as they respectfully attached the poppies to the wire that was to be wrapped around the tree, pausing for a moment of remembrance and thanks.

November 2021- More skin colour work
We are very excited to be working on another project inspired the work of the Brazilian Photographer, Angelica Dass. This week we invited parents to come and find out more and to try their hand at colour mixing.

We also had a film crew from Artsmark filming some of our children working on mixing skin tones ready to make their self-portraits.

November 2021- Autumn Leaves
Some of our younger children in Little Pirates have been making an Autumnal display inspired by the book Leaf Man.

October 2021- Skin Colours
Rashford class have been exploring mixing different skin colours using just red, yellow, blue and white. Look at all the beautiful colours they made.

October 2021- School Art Gallery
Our Pupil Art Council have been very keen to start a School Art Gallery – and here it is!

September 2021 – Year 1 holiday treasures
Year 1 are starting their year by looking at the visual artist and film-maker Joseph Cornell. He was one of the originators of the form of sculpture called assemblage, in which unlikely objects are combined together in a composition. Cornell’s most characteristic art works were boxed assemblages created from found objects. These are simple shadow boxes, usually fronted with a glass pane, in which he arranged fragments of photographs or interesting items.

Year 1 have started exploring the idea of arranging objects and pictures by creating a picture from their holiday treasures. They have been thinking carefully about how to arrange their specials things.
Here are some of the pictures that have been created so far:

July 2021 – Art trail winners

The school community have voted, and the winner of this year’s Art Trail competition is Curie class with their Jen Stark inspired drippy rainbow. Congratulations to them!
Their art work will be going on display in our school Art Gallery.

July 2021 – Art trail visitor

As part of our Arts Festival week, we created an art trail around our school with every class and club contributing something. We were very excited that the Mayor and Mayoress of Thetford came to see our trail. Our Year 6 Arts Council members showed them around and they spent lots of time looking carefully at each piece. They were very impressed by the creativity and quality of everyone’s work.

All the classes have also enjoyed walking the Art Trail. Here is Hadid Class having a great time looking around:

July 2021 – Botanical drawings in Reception
Some of our Reception children have been learning about the pioneering seventeenth-century German artist, scientific illustrator and naturalist - Maria Sibylla Merian. After looking at some of Merian’s botanical illlustrations, the children looked closely at leaves thinking about the lines, shapes and colours they could see. Then they made their own very careful illustrations.

July 2021 – Getting ready for our Arts week

Children in the SRB have been getting ready for our Arts Festival by using art to exploring their identities and learning about colour mixing.

This month, children across the school are practicing mixing colours. Here is Year 5 exploring the hues between a primary and a secondary colour to create drip patterns inspired by the artist Jen Stark. They are going to use these drips to create a window display for our end of term art trail..

Tabei class have started on their identity-self portraits. They are starting with their visible identities, and will be going on to explore what they are like inside.

Breakfast club have been mixing colours to create bottle-bottom flowers to go on our Art Trail.

The School Council have been creating giant figures in the style of Keith Haring. They thought carefully about a pose that said something about their identity.

June 2021 – Father’s Day

Year 3 have been practising their tinting by making ties for their Father’s Day cards.

May 2021 – Identity self-portraits

Right across the school, children have been exploring their identities ahead of our Diversity through the Arts festival in July. In Little Pirates, children have been creating art pieces that reflect their identities.

May 2021 – Year 3 Cityscapes

Year 3 have been continuing with their work on cityscapes. Having looked at buildings, they designed their own city skylines and transferred those designs to foam printing plates. They used printing ink to create three prints which they arranged to make a cityscape.

May 2021 – Art club

Great to see lots of collaborative art going on in the Year 5 drop in art club this week. The Year 5s are really enjoying the opportunity to freely explore our art materials and processes.

April 2021 – Year 5 drop in art club

This week we launched our new lunchtime drop in art club. It was brilliant to see so many of our year 5s come along to engage in their own art.

April 2021 – Botanical Drawings
Year 5 are learning about the reproductive parts of flowers. Alongside that, they have been finding out about the history of the Botanical drawings and making their own careful drawings and paintings of tulips.

Y3 Spring topic – Cityscapes
Year 3 have been learning all about cities around the world. In Art they have been looking at the work of Stephen Wiltshire MBE, London architecture, and buildings designed by the architect Zaha Hadid.

Y2 Lockdown Art – Northern Lights
Year 2 have been creating Northern Lights pictures with the art materials they have at home. Look at the range of techniques they have used.
 

March 2021 - Spring Photography Competition
Well done to all the entrants to our Spring Photography Competition. We loved looking through your photos and seeing all the things you have been up to during Lockdown.
Head to our competitions page to find out the winning entries.
https://www.drake.norfolk.sch.uk/lockdown-2021/
 

February 2021 - half term activities
During half term next week there are all sorts of lovely art activities you could do. You might like to:
1. Design and make your hat for World Book Day
2. Make doves from old milk containers ready to contribute to the flock of doves we’ll be assembling in the Summer term. (scroll down to find the instructions)
3. Have a look at some of these activities from the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich.
https://www.sainsburycentre.co.uk/online-activities-5-11/
I particularly like the outdoor art activity where you look for faces in trees. I wonder which will be your favourite.
 

February 2021 – Children’s Mental Health Week

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme is ‘Express Yourself.’
Expressing yourself is about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity. This could be through art, music, writing and poetry, dance and drama, photography and film, and doing activities that make you feel good.

Researchers have found that drawing is really good for everyone’s mental health – children and adults. It can help us express our ideas and feelings, helps us relax, it can distract us, help us concentrate, improve our confidence and well-being and so much more. So we are going to keep drawing and keep improving our skills in our Virtual Art Club. This week we’ll be looking at how Picasso expressed himself with just one line and trying to do the same. If you haven’t joined the art club yet, but would like to join in, ask to join our Google Classroom.
Or you could try some of these fun activities:

January 2021 - Y3 Lockdown Art - Reach for the Stars

This half term our School Value is Aspiration and Year 3 have been thinking about reaching for their goals. They looked at the work of Romero Britto whose work spreads love and happiness and created their own colourfully patterned hands.

Scroll through to find the instructions to make your own Britto style hands.

January 2021 – Virtual art club

Art club is going virtual! This means anyone can join in!
Each week Mrs Booth will share some activities to do at home on the club’s Google Classroom. Then on a Wednesday lunchtime, those who can will meet up on zoom for a fun activity.

Virtual art club’s first home activity – Doves of Peace and Love
The Y3 art club had decided that they would like to make birds to hang from the trees in Sophia’s Garden. We can take inspiration for this from the artist Michael Pendry who creates art installations from thousands of origami doves. These doves are on a journey through churches around the world, from Jerusalem, to Salisbury, New York and San Francisco to spread message of peace and hope. A fantastic piece of art to be thinking about this week as Wednesday is Holocaust Memorial Day.
Find out more here:
https://www.drake.norfolk.sch.uk/michael-pendry/

At home, you can make as many doves as you like with your families. You don’t have to be in our art club to join in. For now, you can hang your doves in your house or in your garden, then later in the year we’ll bring all our doves together to create our own message of peace and hope.

December 2020 – Art club update
The Pupil Arts Council would like to create bring the arts into Sophia’s Garden.
In the Y3 art club, we have been looking around and thinking about we can make and do to make the garden feel calm and uplifting. We have made a long list of ideas, from mobiles to a giant willow hedgehog den!

We decided to start by making things for Sophia’s garden that are inspired by famous artists. We had a look at different ideas and we all liked Kandinsky’s Circles. We had already decided that we wanted to make a mobile made of wood slices and we thought that this would be perfect inspiration for it.

We used acrylic paint pens to create colourful concentric circles on our wood slices. We are going to string these together and hang them up in Sophia’s Garden.

Find out more about Sophia’s Garden: https://www.drake.norfolk.sch.uk/wellbeing-garden/

 

Y1 Remembrance Day poppies
Year 1 took inspiration from the artist Georgia O’Keefe when creating their oil pastel poppies for Remembrance Day.

Reception Autumn Term Art - exploring
Reception have enjoyed exploring mark making and using different materials.

Y1 Autumn Term Art – paper weaving
While learning about Materials in Science, Year 1 explored paper weaving.

Y4 Autumn Term Art – tints and shades
Year 4 have been practicing mixing tints and shades as well as warm and cool colours. Alongside their topic on Misty Mountains and Winding Rivers, they looked at the work of British born artist, Ted Harrison. They explored his lines and colour palette and began designing their own Ted Harrison style picture.

Y5 Autumn Term Art – wax resist
Year 5 spent the Autumn term developing techniques for using watercolors and wax resist.
They started by exploring wax relief to create microbe pictures inspired by Coronavirus images. As their topic was Alchemy Island they then moved on to magic spells and potions.

Y6 Autumn Term Art - Watercolours
Year 6 enjoyed learning watercolour techniques in the Autumn term culminating in some fantastic Lighthouse paintings.