How To:

Levels 4

What an opportunity to look at both a famous and modern Australian artist’s work while at the same time looking at a monochromatic colour palette.

We looked at John Brack’s ‘Collins Street 5pm’, and discussed the mood of the painting and the way in which Brack had captured this mood with his use of colour.

Following on from previous work we had done with Ocaldo water colour paints, we chose a limited palette of colours to experiment with.  We concentrated on laying one colour on top of another and worked from the background of buildings forward to the trees in front of them.  Our representation was completed by drawing several figures for the foreground on our work.  These drawings were photocopied in various sizes and watercolour pencils and colour pencils were used to colour the figures.  To give them a 3D effect, we pasted them onto a strip of cardboard at the bottom of our work.

A Different Point of view

Level 4

It’s often hard for children to see a subject clearly from a different perspective. 

In this work we attempted to draw ourselves as if we were lying on the floor with our hands and feet reaching out and up.

In fact, this activity resulted in two very different challenges because when we removed our shoes to trace around them, we were amazed at the range of interesting patterns the soles had on them.  So we set about trying to draw these often intricate patterns. 

Next came our hands, then the head and finally connecting all this to a body shape.  This often required ‘models’ lying on the floor with the children standing on chairs above them to get an idea of foreshortening.  Drawing what we saw rather than what we thought we saw needed lots of concentration and consultation.  Media: pencils and dry pastels.

Copyright 2008 Zart Art & Zart Education Service