On Monday evening the art department held the Upper School Big Draw. Pupils from Years 6, 7 and 8 gathered in the dining room with their parents to take part in various art activities based on the theme Play. Miss Bartlett invited students and parents to experiment with acrylic paint, paintbrushes, palette knives and sponge rollers to create a landscape painting of the stunning view from the balcony of L12. Four beautiful canvases were created and each painter added their own special touch to the work. In Mr Taylors activity, trace the face, children and parents had the opportunity to draw each other through the windows on acetate sheets. The results were surprisingly accurate in some cases! Miss Reeves invited pupils to animate inanimate objects using Chatterpix, an app that uses photography, voice input and emoji icons. Alongside this, Miss Reeves created a still-life installation encompassing the event theme Play which the pupils and parents sketched. This encouraged them to work together with view finders and various sketching media to identify their strengths and inner-artist!
Miss Marsh had messy fun with her activity of spin painting, a method of art inspired by Damien Hirst who was influenced by memories of the technique of spin painting which he saw as a child on the BBCs Blue Peter. Some beautiful pieces were created with many vibrant colours. Ms Weston held a stop motion workshop, using Ipads and various props such as plasticine. Stop Motion is when objects are physically manipulated gradually whilst photos of each change are taken; this is then played back in a fast sequence. This activity created some fantastic videos, and alongside this some very interesting paintings were created in Ms Westons blind painting activity. Once blindfolded your partner would have to advise you where to put your paintbrush on the paper directing either up, down, right or left. Mr Reed created an activity using small remote controlled racing cars. Covering the bottom of the vehicles in paint and racing them along the strips of paper created some amazing patterns.
At the end of the evening a raffle was held with some wonderful prizes available. The Big Draw was a great success, thank you to all the teachers and all you talented artists in Upper School!
