#1 Art: what's that about?

Learning Areas: science, interpersonal learning, fine motor skills, English (speaking and listening, extending vocabulary) 

Materials: glass prisms suspended by framing wire, bubble blowers and (good quality) bubble mix, long paper scrolls, drawing mixed media (wax and oil pastel crayons, coloured pencils, coloured felt-tip pens), some examples of my work 

Prehistory(panel1 of 4) Copyright Rufus and Heather Marsh, 2011

March, 2013
This is the first lesson I did with two mixed classes of preps and year ones. I have an hour with each group. There are about 17 children in each class. The classroom teacher is present and participates (which is great!) 


I wanted to know what the children knew.  
I asked them if they would be comfortable trying to take turns talking the way adults do - by waiting for an opportunity to speak, by being attentive and non-verbally negotiating - rather than raising hands and being called on.
I explained that adults actually find this tricky too. 

We began with a short conversation about the nature of art. The children's responses are in quotation marks.  

Tuning In: What is art and why do we make it?  

Who am I? My name is Heather. I am an artist. 

What is art? Can you tell me anything you know or think about art? 

The Gift Of Hindsight  Heather Marsh, 2008

"Art is painting" 

"It can be drawing" 

"I think it's pictures"

"Paintings.."

"I like drawing things..." 

You already have some ideas about what art could be. 
I make art to communicate ideas in a way that is different to just talking or writing about it. 
I like that my artwork allows people to find their own meaning about what I have made.

At the moment I am interested in making art about a few different things:

-  thoughts and memories or stories from my past

-  funny conversations

-  the relationship people have to nature. 

I don’t like to stick to just one way of working. Sometimes I use collage, sometimes I paint or do sculpture but a lot of the time I draw with pen and ink.

I show them The Gift of Hindsight (pictured, above) and pass around inked eggs. I show my drawing book and a collage from a children's illustration (Eupholus Bloom pictured below) 


I'm excited to explore with you the things you are interested in and how you might like to share those ideas through art.   

Eupholus Bloom Copyright Heather Marsh, 2009

Exploring:The Elements of Art

How do we make art?  

"We use paint" 

" We can draw on paper with crayons 
or pencils" 

"I like drawing dogs"

"I want to draw my horse"

There aren’t any strict rules for how to make art. In fact there are limitless ways to make art. You can learn about the different elements of art though, to help to shape your visual idea or message the way you want to. 
The first element we are going go explore today is colour.

The big question we are going to try to answer today is “Where does colour come from?”

Investigation: Let's Find Colour

I take the children outside. It is a sunny day. I have prisms on twisted framing wire that hang from sturdy plastic handles. I also have bubble blowers. 
We go to a big open area and the children begin a mission: to find rainbows. They are very excited and cluster in groups around the rainbows they are making on the ground with the prisms. I ask them to notice how many colours they can see and ask them to name them. 

Playing with prisms, Copyright 2013

We come inside and talk very briefly about the colours that we found – how white light is broken into the visible spectrum. We talk about the other things we need to make colour – our eyes. 

Other animals see colour differently to us because of the structure of their eyes. Bees can see ultra violet light. Cats and dogs mainly see in black and white and grey, but they can see some blue and yellow. 

Cows cannot see colour at all – their world is in what we call grey-scale. 
Colours in the visible spectrum are: red, orange yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet

Making: A colour spectrum scroll 

We are going to collaborate on a large-scale piece of art. 

I have a long scroll of paper. I divide the class into seven groups. Each group is assigned a colour in the visible spectrum and begin free drawing to fill their area. 
Some of the children draw recognisable things, others enjoy making scribbles, shapes and textures. The result is very effective (and I apologise- I didn't take a photo!) 
The final work is a frieze of colours blending gradually into one another from red through to violet, composed of swatches of texture, patterns, scribbles, pictures of dogs, horses, trees, flowers, cars, faces and monsters.. 

Reflection

We gather around the scroll on the floor and talk about the things we notice. 


"I tried to fill up the whole page"" Can you see there? That's my horse"" It looks good the way everybody has drawn together" 


I can see that some of you have made representational drawings - pictures of things we can recognise. Some of you made abstract drawings - shapes and textures. 

We sit back in our circle and close our eyes. 

In your mind I'd like you to travel back in time to when we were outside looking for colour.  Think of the things you saw  and did and what you learned about where colour comes from.

"I could see the rainbow straight away""When I spinned the prism around it made sparkles" " I couldn't see all the colours."" I want to know how all the colours come out of sun"   


I thank them all for such an inspiring first session. 
Following this class, Sam, one of the prep teachers leads an investigation in science to find out more about the spectrum, how we see colour and how other animals see colour. 

My Learning: Prep's and Year 1's are fun and exhausting 

I have loved my first class with preps and ones. I'm excited about discovering and creating with them. I also feel like I have run a marathon. The prep teachers assure me this will pass. When I get home I have a Nana nap. I realise that I need to make time to document their work - even if I feel too tired after the pack-up! I really wish I had taken photographs of the spectrum scroll. 

New Vocabulary  spectrum, elements of art, prism, collaborate, collage, grey-scale, representational, abstract 


Further Resources
http://www.colormatters.com/color-matters-for-kids/how-animals-see-color