Matisse Line- Stanger on a journey maps.

Teaching Year 6 students to cut a Matisse line figure is always fun. And certainly interesting when you tell them that only paper and scissors are to be used. When I tell them no pencils are allowed they looked socked and then worried. How are we going to cut out a figure without drawing first... So here are my examples that I cut in front of them as a demo to prove that it can be done easily....This is my gnome in yellow, samurai in blue and fairy in pink... I love the shoes!A map at the beginning stages....
A map finished, with a witch on her broomstick. She has flown through the forest, over the lake, around the mountains, over the volcano, fought the monster, gone through the caves, over the river, across the bridge and finally to the castle...
Another wonderful journey map with Santa's little helper collecting presents... Sometimes things fall into place..... I hope you like the maps!

The Fish Are Finished!!!!!

A full day but the Rainbow fish are finished.... I am very proud, they look great. The Year 2 class has done a wonderful job... check it out!

A sea of Rainbow Fish, each class member is so excited they wanted to take them home then and there. They were a tad PVA glue wet, so a sleep over on my drying racks it has to be... No RED today, this is so much better!

Wicked Witch....

After after a stressful day and again more changes to the new curriculum, it would be great if they could work out the layout and stop changing things after we complete them. It would certainly make it all easier on the rest of us. Today I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West- one of my favourite characters of all time. How can you go past- "I'll get you my pretty...."

Some days I wish I could get on my broom stick and fly away.There is no red post today, I have gone complementary colours after yesterday, Green...

We All Need RED!

After a long day, tweaking my art curriculum and working on reports I decided that the day wouldn't be complete with out a delightfully RED post.... We all need to dream and remember- that there is no place like home, no place like home, and that a visit to the Emerald city, yes complementary colours- RED and Green....is a must......

As you can see, one of my favourite movies of all time is - "The Wizard of Oz". It really is a one of the best! Dorothy always makes me smile... so does the Wicked Witch of the West!

The Day Begins Quietly....

Early Sunday morn, yes i have put on the dishwasher and also washing machine....All background noise instead of the rain that was falling yesterday. The rain appears to have stopped, outside the driveway is dry and we are back to cold dry weather as opposed to cold wet weather in Melbourne....

Just wanted to share today some real RED today!

This masterpiece is "The Red Room" (Harmony In Red): by Henri Matisse 1908. Now I know we all can't travel to Russia but Internet surfing has brought ART right into our homes. This extraordinary oil painting is held at the State Hermitage Museum. Now with the click of a button you can see the whole Matisse Room, which is in the Winter Palace on the Second Floor. They hold many masterpieces there and let me tell you they really have amassed quite a collection. If indeed you do have a spare few minutes why not check it out?

A rainy grey weekend but bright artwork to combat it!

Yes we all know two heads are better than one, at least this Year 1 student believes so. And one can't have 2 heads with out RED teeth.... maybe too many red apples? Pretty scary monster.... I believe that these monsters are pretty outrageous. I too want to attend the Blot and Og monster party in Blogsville, because you just don't know who you might bump into.Where do I even begin to explain what this student was thinking here?Wouldn't want to meet this monster in a darken alley...This was a favourite of mine, perfect, even has a RED head!!! Gosh not bad for a 6 year old.... Maybe I do have a few budding young artists in the year 1 class....

Thanks the lord that Friday rolls around!

After a way too hectic day on Thursday, and a terrible night last night, (I set my alarm for 5:05am instead of 6:05am???? Yea, I know I think my brain was mushed last night) I have gotten my head around the Curriculum documents and that I have to say makes me happy, in fact that was why there was no post yesterday. I spent the evening after work strapped to the laptop here updating the curriculum. In between writing reports and redoing the whole Art curriculum I have many hours of solitary work plugging away at the keyboard. Oh the JOY of being a teacher? But there is good news, I have lots to share and even year 1 glory as promised....

These are my very skillful Year 5 students. We looked at cartoon drawing. At the start....

Cartoon drawing with colour.

Another at the beginning stages...

The finished coloured product... Not bad, don't you think?"Three Headed Monster"

A lovely RED post to conclude on. This masterpiece was created by an awesome Year 1 student. Today we read the picture storybook "Og and Blots Monster Party". Very cute book, the monsters are amazing. The students had to design their own monster who would attend Og and Blots monster party. This was one such monster, stay tuned as I intend to post the rest tomorrow. After designing the monster, they had to cut it out and next week I am going to put them up all together on the window so they can come to the party.......They are just fabulous!!! Maybe this is what I have morphed into after all the stress of the week, hmmm, curriculum and report writing, thank the lord it is Friday and that means one thing- the weekend and no more yard duties!!!!

Long Day- (students on another planet?)

Yea, the day was long..... Sandpit yard duty is always an interesting distraction. Between little students telling tales that, "someone has been eating food off the ground"? Yuck???? or that "someone broke my sandcastle", or "someone threw sand at me", or "no one wants to play with me"! We do usually have to settle a lot of little dilemmas.....

Here the Year 2's are getting their "Rainbow fish" underway.. Beautiful!

These are Year 6 maps for "A Stranger On A Journey" now these are a work in progress. So next week I can show you the STRANGER that heads along the journey...

After a long staff meeting after school and being told that the curriculum needs a major over haul, great more work! In between writing school reports we now have 6 or so weeks to get the curriculum folders up to date. Yea, life can't get any better can it? I suppose I could be eating food off the ground???? Yuck!!! oh the glorious life of a teacher... Too tired to post a RED.....there is always tomorrow...

Masks...

As the day began i knew that the day would be turned upside down due to the NAPLAN testing that all years 3 and 5 are undergoing. Literacy testing today, more torture on Thursday. So my timetable was slightly adjusted and i ended up having years 4 for two double periods instead of just one double. At least we got to catch up on some extra work. Here is what the brilliant guys came up with... So far, we have designed, painted and we now need to add and attach feathers, beads, wool, string, straws and any other objects found in the back of my magic storeroom...Colourful and dynamic, but I am biased!I wish I could show you how proud they were when they stood there with them. It was fantastic to see them so happy with their results. But like I said they are not finished. I will have to post them when they do complete them...

-As always I have a RED addition to add today. How sweet is this artwork titled "The encounter", 2006 under the Fairy Tales works by Polixeni Papapetrou. Check it out. The whole image with the child's deep red cloak is fabulous!

Monday Felt Day?

As I promised I have taken my camera out and finally got some pics of my master felters in full glory. Very dedicated they come in during lunch. They are steaming ahead, and are coming up with all sorts of wonderful little creations. -Felting wool to create balls for little bodies, heads, arms etc..
-One such felted gnome in progress.
-This student was so proud of his creation he wanted to take it home right away to show his mum! Very cute, not bad for a Year 6!!! These two beautiful artworks were created by two very talented Prep students today. These are their jungle animal collages. The one on top has a very ferocious crocodile and the one on the right has a zebra, leopard and orange octopus. They are just perfect.... and of course they each got a gold star! For working their best.

Like usual I have finished with a RED post. Can't finish today without leaving some red. This is a very cute wooden Kokeshi doll that inspired me to make my soft doll. I love her red robe and cute hair....RED, RED, RED long live RED!!!

Happy Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mums who make the world go round!!!!! I know my mum Bobbi makes my world go around and I would be lost without her....

Last night I was lucky enough to head out for a party, in fact a wedding anniversary. I must admit that I really knew know one there so I felt like Bridget Jones in the "Edge of Reason". If you have seen the movie she goes with Darcy to the Law Council dinner, all dressed up not knowing anyone and really feeling like I was a fish out of water. And no I didn't call anyone, "a half balding upper class snob" like Bridget so eloquently puts it. But I have to say my wonderful better half knew everyone, I did not. But the one thing I did quite like was one each table there were these wonderful wooden lady bugs all scattered. I have to tell the truth now that I did take a few of the little critters cause the were soooo cute.... Here is how I arranged them this morning, in recognition to how i felt last night...

Yes, I am the RED lady bug heading in the wrong direction..... not such a good thing?

Like usual I woke early, Henri the trusty alarm came to greet me with a wet nose at 7am so I got up and got to work on the next altered pattern for my Kokeshi doll. I enlarged the whole doll to make her easier to work on, and sewed the arms straight in. I now still have to add her face, hair, stuffing, and decorations for hair. I think she looks better, but not there completely. I am sure there will have to be more alterations... Like usual a work in progress. By now I am sure you can tell my sewing skills are limited but I am learning...

Here I wanted to share with you a wonderful post card I bought when I was at Heidi Museum of Modern Art the other day. This work has been created by Polixeni Papapetrou. I bought the postcard of the image on the right below. I just love all Lewis Carroll's works. He was a brilliant writer and I read his complete works a few years ago. You know, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". He was also a brilliant mathematician, and his poems are fantastic! If ever bored, pick up a copy and see what you can discover. But getting back to the wonderful artworks of Polixeni Papapetrou.

They are both from the Wonderland series. The one on the left is called "Cheshire Cat" 2003 and the one on the right is called, "Riddles That Have No Answers" 2004. Check out he site, with the link here! All of the works are just sublime. I wish I had the real thing.....

-Happy Mother's Day to all, I am now off to wish my mummy a Happy Mother's Day too...

All Alone Saturday.

I woke early like usual, I am an early riser and early to bed type of girl....Late last night, I was thinking about getting back to making a geisha/ kokeshi soft doll. I have a beautiful wooden one which is always a joy to look at, but my attempts at making one out of material have always failed. I thought about it before bed last night and the dreamt about how I would sew one up. This morning I knew that I would be spending the day all alone except for Henri, so I went ahead and drew up a simple design. Then I thought about material? or shall I shall, not thought properly about the material?

So I began to make a pattern, and here she is- a little disaster. I think that I like the head, but I am certainly going to have to make drastic changes to the body. I also changed the arms around and believe that here the body needs to be bigger. The material is important too, I can see here that my choice was totally wrong, but- we live and learn! Isn't that what they say?

Here, Henri is with the finished prototype kokeshi doll. I have to sneak a few of my baby in once in a while. Like a supermodel he waits patiently.

All the modeling is putting him to sleep!Also had to share my passion with you for new lip balms, I am a compulsive collector of lip balms. I have so many and just can't get enough. There is no limit to what I will do to find and test new ones. This new one I was lucky enough to find in the supermarket- a gem, very affordable too. In fact only $3.00. I think that has to be the cheapest in a long time... It is called Lip Ice, very cute container and nice to wear. Also some button I had given to me, the house is now a mess after my kokeshi doll endeavour! Threads, material snippets, wadding all over my wooden floor. But of course- RED Lips... kiss kiss! How could I not end with red? Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow, all you wonderful mums out there in the world!

Mounting a ridulous amount of family portraits!

After a hectic day of mounting all the family portraits that I possibly could, let me say I am very glad that now is Friday night and tomorrow is Saturday..... No work and no more family portraits. I was so run off my feet that I didn't even get time to take any wonderful pics of my favourite class- Year 1!!! And yet their work was glorious, I promise next week I will deliver and take many pics of creative grade one geniuses in action!!

-But here I have posted my work to remind me of why I love to create so much. Life is all about growing and living... What do you think? "A Woolf in sheep's clothing?"

One thing to make me happy is my my work.... and RED, items and things...Below is "The Dove".One Blog I did discover was Miko Design, an awesome blog with some really cool stuff! The Babushkas printed on linen fabric is just beautiful... I want some, as I love Babushka dolls! Also thanks Miko Design for the lovely comment on my blog! Thanks again!!! Love your work too!!!



All I can say is happy weekend everyone, let's party and create!!!

A Day At Heidi....

After a mammoth 1 and half hour drive across the city, (traffic!!!) I arrived at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. The day began with a viewing of the Rick Amor's exhibition.

The special part was that we were lucky enough- (the 17 art teachers as well as myself) to have the artist himself- Rick Amor walk us through his exhibition. It follows Ricks' progression from being an student at art school in the 60's all the way to today. It was an awesome collection. He was very giving in information and always willing to answer candidly about his life and work as a professional artist....

One point of interest was that he had John Brack at a lecturer at art school- How wonderful would that have been?? I just love John Brack- Collins Street, 5pm (1955) is one of my favourite Australian paintings ever.I can't wait till the retrospective comes to the NGV federation next year. That will be an exceptional exhibition!!! You can see the John Brack influence in Ricks' work....it is so there and even he admits it! Rick said that the first half of his artistic life his pictures are about art and the second half are now about ones self...

A few quotes by Rick talking about his work that particularly I found interesting:
-"Pictures should take you somewhere."
-"You don't want to say too much."
-"Pictures/ paintings should be the beginning, not the end of something."
-"You can paint a whole picture using black, white and burnt sienna."
I suppose I am in trouble then because I love RED!!! Oh no, does that mean I am doomed???
After the Rick Amor viewing we had a very art teacher orientated theory lesson, using Ricks work as an example called 'Theory: A dialogue with art'. It certainly helped clear up VELS for me- in the arts!

-After a yummy lunch we began a practical activity again using Rick Amor's working methods. We each worked on an oil painting. I must admit that oil painting and myself are relatively uncharted waters. I am the first to admit that I have a very limited knowledge of oil painting... so it was quite an eye opening experience. I do think though working on an oil painting in a few short hours is really a very hard activity to grasp. I mean we had to mix up a variety of colours using a very limited palette. Use a terrible coloured photocopy to reappropriate one of Rick Amor's paintings- the Catman..... Though I did learn what a meticulous artist Rick is. He rules up each canvas to create the Golden Mean...... it was amazing to learn and also rule up my own canvas that way. Showing us that each oil painting follows the perfect proportions and is lined up in the direct line of each section. The ancient Greeks knew of a rectangle whose sides are in the golden proportion (1 : 1.618 which is the same as 0.618 : 1). Never knew I was the maths type!! I must say my oil painting was a shambles but I did enjoy it and I did learn... A great web site on Fibonacci Numbers and the golden mean is the Fibonacci Numbers and The Golden Section in Art, Architecture and Music. A wonderful site to explore the masters use of the divine proportions... Here are a few pics of the oil paintings in working progress..

You can see my start on the left, another wonderful teacher on the right..... God the golden mean is doing my head in! With the coloured photocopy we worked from on the bottom left.

Overall a wonderful day, but I still have to finish with a little RED..... Yes Sybil Fawlty was what I felt like after trying to rule up the golden mean and try to work out the Fibonacci numbers... Aghhhhhhhhh!