The Big Draw 2012

Arts Week at Ladygrove Primary School Didcot 21st-26th October

The theme for the week was print and each year group produced designs on a different topic. For the Foundation Stage it was leaves and trees, Years One and Two looked at geometric shapes to make patterns and borders. Year 3 made African tabards, Year 4 peacocks and Year 5 printed fish and the sea backgrounds.

On Friday the work was displayed in the outside courtyard for the school and the parents to look at.

Foundation Stage - Trees

I had the whole day with the foundation year so we could spend time in smaller groups painting and decorating three 5' high trees.

I took the cutout cardboard shapes into school and the first job after assembly was to paint them brown. While the paint was drying, we went on a leaf hunt to find leaves that were suitable for printing with, we needed flat ones that weren't to dry and crinkled up and also big enough to make nice shapes.

Year One - Geometric Patterns

There was quite a short afternoon with Year One, but luckily we could use the potato printing blocks and corks from the morning with Year Two. We looked at geometric patterns and produced sequences of squares, triangles and circles using blue and red paint.

Year Two - Geometric Patterns

In the morning with Year Two, we looked at some Islamic patterns and noted how many stars were found in their designs. We discussed how many points a star might have and how you could make simple star shapes by printing a triangle or square and then turning it and printing it again on top.

Before we started printing, we experimented with shapes by drawing around plastic shapes to make triangles, squares and stars. Next we printed shapes using potato blocks and corks for circles to make border designs. We used purple, yellow and green paint onto pale blue, yellow and dark green card and looked at which colours showed up best on which background.

Year Three - African Tabards

We began the afternoon session by looking at some traditional African designs to use as source for decorating the tabards. We then cut the fabric to size and made a belt for each tabard.

Corrugated card and pieces of bubblewrap was cut into shapes inspired by the designs and we practiced printing onto paper first. We then divided up into groups of five, each with a tabard and belt to print onto cotton calico using fabric paints.

For the exhibition we decided to display them as if they were hanging on a washing line.

Year Four - Peacocks

Year Four had chosen to look at peacocks and their beautiful plummage for there morning. I took in a rather strange set of cardboard pieces that would stuck together to make two birds. Of course they first had to be decorated, and I was really impressed with the way they painted the backgrounds even though they weren't sure how the different elements would come together.

The next thing was to make the printing blocks. I had cut the Spaceprint, a type of polystyrene we were using, into feather and circle shapes and we drew into them using pencils and some clay modeling tools to make indentations that looked like markings. These were then used to paint the tail sections and to make individual feathers that were glued on later. We used gold, blue, green and purple paints with some glitter and sequins to make the feathers really vibrant.

Year Five - Fish

Year Five had a day to make four fishy fabric panels. A number of students elected to cut out the fish stencils, there were two for each fish while the other set up. First of all we practiced using the stencils on paper to check out how the colours mixed when they were put stenciled one on top of another.

When we were happy with the results, everyone stencilled a fish onto fabric. Then we cut corrugated card and bubblewrap to use for the printed sea background and divided into four groups to print. The next day when the paint was dry, we cut the fish out and stitched them onto the background.