At the Rock Pools

As part of their inquiry unit ‘Secrets of the Sea’, the Year 1 students at Caulfield Grammar looked at and considered a variety of art works that depicted people at the seaside.

They discussed the reasons why an artist might paint this subject, the things they saw in the paintings and how the artists had worked.

As they were planning a trip to Ricketts Point to explore the rock pools there, the students talked about the clothes they would wear, what they might see and what the weather might be like.

They started by making drawings of themselves, dressed for rock pool visiting, with black texta and crayon- concentrating on “making their crayons sing” so that the colours were nice and bright. The colouring took several sessions and was done alongside the painting and making of rock pool creatures

The seascapes were created in a series of sessions, starting with rock pools, moulded onto the cardboard with Sculpt-It.  In the next session, the sky and sand areas were painted on – using brushes and sponges, and in the last session, they were shown how to mask a horizon line before they painted the sea- concentrating on creating sea effects. The inside of the rock pools were also painted in this session.

Once all the paint was dry, the rocks were painted and left to dry, then  the rock pool, with sea creatures glued in, was filled with resin and left to set.

The students decided on the position of their figure and all was compiled.

The students were thoroughly engaged in all aspects of this work, and took ownership of all the decisions about positioning of rocks, sea, sky and self. It was great to see them take initiative and be independent about their decision making. They were thrilled with the results, most especially the resin!

Philippa Stichbury-Cooper
Art Teacher
Caulfield Grammar (Malvern Campus)
Suitable for Level 2