More Chinese Scroll Paintings

 I recently revisited this project which I first completed with grade 4 students back in 2012.

The only change I made this time was that instead of using pastels for the blossoms I had students dip a paintbrush into red, pink and white paint and use the tip of their brush with the three colours on it to create the plum blossoms with a variegated effect.

Ming Vase Scratch Art

Thank you Miriam at arte a scuola for this amazing idea based on iconic blue and white ceramics of unusual shapes from China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

My grade 5 students used pictures of Ming vases as a reference when drawing their own large symmetrical vessel. They then filled in their shape with layers of blue oil pastel in various shades. They then painted the shape with a couple of layers of white paint before using a wooden skewer to scratch in their drawings. 

 

Clay Chinese Dragons

These dragons were made by my Grade 5 students earlier this year for Year of The Dragon. After some research, we discovered that Chinese dragons are traditionally portrayed as a creature with a snake-like body, the head of a camel, ears of a cow, eyes of a bull, horns of a stag, scales of a fish and claws of an eagle.

These individual characteristics really helped the students to create their dragons one feature at a time. After firing, the dragons were painted and some students chose to add glitter or googly eyes.