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.

Animal Pattern Prints

 Grade 3 students made drawings of animals that travel together in groups before choosing one design to draw and engrave into a small styrofoam block. The process of block printing was demonstrated to students and they then repeated their print as many times as they could fit onto an A4 page. 

Once complete, students used a coloured dye to paint one section of their pattern to act as a focal point.

 

 

Easy Windswept Trees

These trees were created by blowing on wet painted ink through a straw, in the same way as this activity. It's a pretty achievable and effective activity for children of all ages.

Bushfire Paintings

Bushfire photo from sosnews.org

The students came back to school from holidays the same week as the Black Saturday Bushfires.
The newspapers were full of horrific but beautiful photos of burning fires. The school was raising money for the victims of the fires and these paintings by grade 5 students helped to raise awareness when displayed around the school.

The activity is inspired by an activity in this book which has a lot of great activities.

The background was created with a wash of red, orange and yellow edicol dyes. A thick line of black drawing ink was then painted across the bottom of the page and a few thick wet blobs of ink were added along the line. Students then used a short length of straw to blow the wet ink into spidery tree patterns. Each student's results were different but all were proud of their work.