Visual Art Term 2

: Painting, Shape and Colour -Exploring and Experimenting using Paint

Last term, when collaging, we realized the subtleties of colour and texture we were able to achieve through layering painted papers on top of one another. Through this process we developed a curiosity for layering, painted line and the wonderful world of colour mixing. This term, we will pursue the students intense interest in the wonderful world of paint, and colour. Students have expressed a desire to further explore the medium of painting and the science of colour mixing. Paint is the perfect medium in which to explore how colours are mixed. We will explore paint and colour through a variety of artists, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miro, Sonia Delaunay and ben Nicholson.

We will also link with the NGV SPECTRUM: AN EXPLORATION OF COLOUR UNTIL 29 AUGUST 2021exhibition. Taking the magnificent sparkling cut-glass ceiling of the Great Hall as the inspiration for the colour palette, Spectrum explores and celebrates colour through the NGV Collection, from antiquity to the present. The exhibition investigates the history and artistic use of twelve different colours, from exotic origins and trade, to manufacture and symbolism across time and culture. The display features samples of materials and pigments used to create colours such as lapis lazuli and Indian Yellow – an intensely coloured pigment extracted from the urine of cows fed on mango leaves – and looks closely at artist’s paints and the raw pigments used to produce them, including oil paint used in the NGV’s jewel-like fifteenth-century Flemish Virgin and Child, watercolours in eighteenth-century Indian miniatures, and the pastels used in eighteenth-century works.

If you have the opportunity, please visit this wonderful exhibition.

In week 1 we examined the approach of Paul Klee, who siad:

“A drawing is simply taking a line for a walk.”

Using a black felt tip students went for an imaginary walk over their page. This was all about loosening up and play and creative invention using line and colour. They then used water colour paint to create imagery from the line, seeking out images and patterns from the unconscious line walking. Their focus was on creating an unrestricted use of line and colour and fostering a playful approach to making and creating.

Below are some works from the year prep-4:

This week we will be exploring a collaborative approach to painting using shape and colour to create both a large scale and smaller individual piece. This exercise in painting examines the accidental as a means of exploring possibilities….