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Zart Extra Term 3 2010

Exploring An Artist's Style

Our Lady of Sion College

The students at Our Lady of Sion College in Box Hill used the artworks of Friedensreich Hundertwasser as inspiration for their work. Using different media each class produced their interpretation of his work with amazingly different results.

Our Year 8 students viewed many different examples of the art of Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The Austrian painter, architect and ecologist used bold bright colours, explored pattern and repetition of shapes and lines in his paintings. We explored his style through a wide variety of paintings and architecture and focused particularly on his imaginative use of repetitive line, pattern and spirals. The representation of buildings, landforms, trees, faces and his boat is more distorted fantasy than realism. As a class we discussed and brainstormed as many descriptive words relating to his artwork as possible and listed these on the board. A passage from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when the characters first enter the amazing factory, was read to the students as they sketched possibilities for a fantasy land. The students created a series of design ideas for their landscape before refining and developing one final idea.

In one class the students sketched lightly in pencil and then all the line work was drawn with wax crayons. Some metallic crayons were used for highlights. The completed drawing was then painted with watercolours. The resist method gave emphasis to the drawn lines and allowed the drawing to shine through the paint.

In the other class, students started with a light pencil underdrawing of their fantasy landscape. Once completed, students applied watercolour paints, being careful to allow each section to dry before painting the one next to it to avoid colours bleeding into one another. The line work was then emphasised using a gold pen to add detail and to create pattern.

The students were inspired and influenced by this unrestrained yet controlled approach to design, responding imaginatively and creatively to the task. It was interesting to compare the different compositions and aesthetic qualities that the students created through the use of different mediums and scale. They completed this unit by writing an art appreciation visual analysis piece on one of Hundertwasser’s paintings.

Jennifer Schwab
Emma Davidson
Our Lady of Sion College, Box Hill

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