A Swell Time

We continued to investigate our marine theme in The Art Room this week and across our classes we explored how we might achieve movement and dynamism in our art works.

Our Preschoolers embarked on a multi-media activity to create a cast of colourful, crustacean puppets. Cutting, colouring, sticking and assembling with the help of their grown-ups, our smallest artists carefully threaded split pins through the body parts of their crab to form joints and flexible limbs. With the final addition of paper straw-rods, each cardboard crab was animated by its maker and scuttled away happily to its new home.

Afterschool, we let our imaginations swim with the idea of capturing the energy and undulation of ocean waves by making seascape sculptures from paper and card. Using The Great Wave, the powerful woodblock print by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, as inspiration, the children worked with bits of card and strips of paper to form a three-dimensional composition that captured the swirling movement of the waves through shreds, curls and arching paper forms. Encouraged to let chance and experimentation shape their materials and their decision-making, each child created a unique interpretation of an expanse of sea: some with gentle, foamy ripples to showcase diving marine forms, others with uncharted and gigantic, cresting rolls. All displayed the power of curiosity and discovery to innovate and find new possibilities through creativity.  Well done everyone, what spectacular results!