In the classroom Level 3 students were involved in a unit on ‘Space’. They already had an
excellent knowledge of planets in our solar system.
Before starting
In the Art room we brainstormed features of each planet eg Mars…hot, dusty, dry; Pluto…cold, icy, dark;
Jupiter…rocky etc.
We discussed appropriate colour palettes to depict those conditions …cold/warm and related
hues.
We studied a variety of landscape styles e.g. Botanical, Impressionist, Aboriginal, and noted some famous
artists such as Von Guerard, Streeton and noted the various views eg ‘bird’s eye’ and
‘vista’.
Painting
The students used Global paints and fine brushes. The global series had a great range of colours and
coverage/opacity. All students produced quite different scenes and styles in their paintings.
Magic Paper Clay
I had purchased the coloured Magiclay with the view of hopefully using it to develop ‘Aliens’ that
might live on those planets. A few early finishers experimented with the modelling media to discover the pitfalls and
to see how it would work on a painted surface. We found only small quantities were needed to create the
creatures and they could be moulded and then pressed onto the painted surface directly without any glue. It
dried overnight and was quite tough and resilient. Work could be handled quite roughly without any damage or small
detailed pieces coming off. In fact this work has already been displayed for a term in the art room with little
detriment.
Tips
When handling the Magiclay clean hands are a must!! Keeping containers well sealed was also a must…I
squashed left over media firmly into the container, covered the surface with glad wrap, then the lid, then stored the
set in the canister supplied with lid on. This ensured we were able to reuse the left over media several weeks
later to create jewellery pieces.
Colours can be mixed by rolling and squeezing together to create quite true
colour mixes resulting in many more colours than were otherwise available eg paler pinks and blues, teal, light green
etc.
Judi Hayton
Visual Art Teacher
Glenferrie Primary School
Suitable for Level 3