During Visual Arts, the grade 3/4s began a study into Australian artist Howard Arkley to incorporate their Integrated Curriculum Units, Multicultural Australia and Living in Harmony.  We looked at his use of the art elements colour, texture, line and shape and the way he manipulated pattern.

A number of techniques were investigated in our artist study, which included oil pastel drawings of interior and exterior living spaces from magazines and photos of student’s own homes, frottage using rubbing blocks and textured rubbing plates and the highly patterned work of the Zappo Head masks drawn with black markers and painted with food dye.

These works were based on his paintings House and Garden, Western Suburbs, Melbourne 1998, and the interiors Riteroom 1998 and Modstyle 1992. The masks were inspired by the ornate and elaborate use of pattern in Arkley’s Tattooed (Head) 1983.

The book Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley by John Gregory was a valuable resource with brilliant reproductions of his brightly coloured work.

Copyright 2009 Zart Art & Zart Education