Junior classes: 5-10yrs
Our Objective – confidence, creativity, and a love of art!
Lilly-Lee’s aim is to fill the visual-art gap growing in the QLD school’s curricula. Not only is really it important to capitalise on the creative brain growth that children are developing at this age, but it is essential for creative children to feel their gifts are acknowledged and valued. During our classes we expose the children to a vast array of art methods, styles, concepts, and materials; rotating our focus between drawing, painting, and sculpture to develop a broad artistic knowledge base.
Confidence, creativity, and a love of art, are our most important goals. While we cover technique, this is not our primary focus for this age group as technique can be perfected as our fine motor skills develop. Creativity however is far more difficult to teach and is very quickly lost as we grow and develop our more logical thought processes and our 'fear of failure'; so it is essential that creativity is constantly encouraged and nurtured. If young people grow and maintain their creative and experimental abilities, not only does it allow for a more advanced and resilient way of thinking, but it also allows for the ‘trials and errors’ necessary in making unique and exceptional art.
Creative confidence, through fun and experimentation, the way art should always be!
Junior Projects - Term 2 2024
Junior Class - Week 1 - Pastel Techniques and Final Piece
In week 1, we started practising with soft-pastels and the different technique we use to make marks using this medium. The students were taught scumbling, cross hatching, dots, strokes, and scribbles, and feathering. Then, on craft paper, the students using these techniques created their own soft-pastel animal.
Junior Class - Week 10 - Biscuit Decorating and Easter Cards
This week is our usual end of term project - decorating using biscuits as our canvas, to show that we can use anything within our environment as tools for our creativity. Students also created some collaged and painted Easter cards.
Junior Class - Week 9 - Colour Theory
This week we looked at analogous colours (3 or 4 colours close together on the colour wheel) and complementary colours (colours on the opposite side of the colour wheel) to understand how to create nice balances or interesting combinations of colour.
Junior Class - Week 8 - The Study of Eyes
This week (excuse the pun) we used our observation skills to study the diverse range of eye shape, size, colour within the animal kingdom and humankind. We discussed the unique features of each and why they may have any particular features. Observation is an extremely important artist skill.
The students were shown good sketching techniques and then had their choice of tonal graphite, watercolour pencil and charcoal to create a collection of eye recreations.
Junior Class - Week 6 & 7 - Clay Habitats
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Over the past two weeks the students created habitats with air dry clay and found objects from our natural environment. It is always wonderful incorporating organic materials into our work and our creative thinking. The students learnt clay making techniques including slip and scoring for structural integrity.
Junior Class- Week 5 - Principals + Elements of Art and Design
Using Van Gogh's Starry Night painting as an example, we covered technicality aspects of a good artwork this week, exploring art elements. Including line, colour, tone, texture, space, form, and art design principals, balance unity, variety, emphasis, movement, pattern and proportion.
Junior Class - Week 4 - Acrylic on Canvas
In contrast to week 3, using tricky porcelain paint on the smooth surface of ceramic tiles, the students this week used the smooth consistency of acrylic paint on the textured surface of canvas. We covered the importance of using gesso (primer) and how it is applied prior to the paint application.
Junior Class - Week 3 - Porcelain Paint on Tiles
In week three we practiced painting on ceramic tiles with porcelain paint. The ceramic paint medium has been used for decoration and pattern making for thousands of years in Middle Eastern and East Asian Cultures. Using this medium, we practiced with a thick paint consistency on a smooth surface. Next week we will compare this to using a smooth, thin paint consistency on a rough surface.
Junior Class - Week 2 - Charcoal
This week we explored the charcoal medium, in three different forms - willow (soft), pencil (medium) and compressed (hard) charcoal. Charcoal is a beautifully expressive and an awesomely messy medium. Using paper the students created these moody images by practicing the following methods:
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Additive method - applying the pigment directly where required.
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Eraser method - applying pigment over a broad area and then lifting the charcoal.
Junior Class - Week 1 - Water Colour and Ink
For our first week we bounced straight back into watercolour painting. We explored the satisfying effects achievable using abstract watercolour bleeds, contrasted with black silhouettes.
Junior Class - Week 10 – The art of food
Our final week for the term was filled with holiday related creativity, including bon bons biscuits, and paper lanterns. Our end of term biscuits decorating has become a ‘looked forward to’ tradition, acknowledging that art comes in all forms, and a canvas can come in all shapes and sizes. Happy holidays!
Junior Class - Week 9 – Watercolour holiday cards
The students created beautiful abstract watercolour paintings which were then used to make lovely, collaged shapes to decorate these hand-made holiday cards.
Junior Class - Week 8 – Sculpture: Rock Art
By popular demand, this week we made holiday related Rock Art. As always, the children often take their projects to their own creative spaces.
Junior Class - Week 7 Ancient Art Metal Medallions and Sculptures.
This week we looked at the history of Metal Art dating back to 7,000 BC and which was used throughout most of the world’s cultures to create masks, jewellery, statues, afterlife memorials, decorative interiors and exteriors and coins.
The students then made sculptures and medallions using clay and metallic acrylic paint.
Junior Class Week 6 – Jackson Pollock Inspired Painting
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Paul Jackson Pollock was an American painter. An abstract expressionist, Pollock used a "drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface. Using acrylic paint the students splattered, poured, primary colours with generous expressive movements.
Junior Class Week 5 – Drawing the Human Figure
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This week’s more technical project was not perceived with as much enthusiasm as some of our more creative projects, but there was some good take aways for the students to consider when they attempt to draw figures in the future. We discussed and recreated the proportions of the figure using 2D and 3D examples. It was lovely to see some of the students surprised by their outcomes, with one very young student proudly claiming that this was the very best picture that she had ever drawn.
Junior Class Week 4 – Underwater World’s using Mixed Media
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Recycling a large number of sushi trays the students created these fantastic underwater worlds! This project was similar to the incursion that Lilly-Lee ran for the Weller Hill grade 3 & 4’s last term. Utilising acrylic paint, posca pens, rocks, shells, and ceramic fish the students built these bright vibrant table decorations.
Junior Class Week 3 – Collaboration and Public Art
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This week was a really interesting week where we covered a number of concepts. Primarily Public Art.
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We discussed the history, the role, and benefits of public art but also the importance of permission.
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We focused on the enjoyment of collaboration, where artists work together combining their different creative strengths.
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We also looked at what is temporary or performance art – which is typically created for a spontaneous or participatory experience, enjoyed in the moment.
These concepts made for a great physical creative experience that leant itself to some lovely, combined ideas and a lot of general excitement! We thought the “Touch Grass” artwork was really relevant, with its implication to get off electronics and get amongst the real world.
Junior Class Week 2 – Abstract Painting
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One of the pioneers of abstract art Wassily Kandinsky, was our inspiration for this week’s project. We looked at how to create art ‘organically’ where we leave some of the making to chance, creating an image that isn’t necessarily a recognisable picture. We discussed how this gives the audience the opportunity to have own interpretation of our artwork. Using nuts and bolts the students rolled them over the paper, and then explored how to create the balance of colours, tones, and shapes, required in Abstract Art.
Junior Class Week 1 – Textile Art
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The junior students began this term full of creativity and enthusiasm and we put it to good use! Utilising donated fabrics the students created these wall hung collage works, focusing on patterning and colours.
Junior Class Week 9-10 – Collage
Over the last 2 weeks of the term, the children engaged in collage using magazine cut out of facial features making their own patch work creations (as seen below), some free time, and of course our end of term biscuit decoration creations – edible art, a great combination!
Junior Class Week 6-8 – Layering & Mixed Media on Canvas
We worked on these large canvases, some a meter long (the height of some of our junior students) over a number of weeks. These donated canvases were filled with drip painting, stencilling, and paint pens to make these dramatic and vibrant large-scale canvas works. The juniors were so focused and engaged having the opportunity to work on these canvases and easels and their creative flair was amazing to watch.
Junior Class Week 5 – Self Portraiture
Using mirrors, we encouraged the junior students to draw themselves while really studying their specific features. We used central vertical and horizontal lines to help place their features in the correct positions and then used our shading knowledge from previous weeks to create 3-dimensional effects. Children as young as prep were using these observational skills to produce portraits in their likeness.
Junior Class Week 4 – Sculpture Clay
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We had a free time air-dry clay session this week, where we intentionally didn’t direct the students with their project ideas. Instead, we taught them how to use clay tools and clay making techniques that would help them build their objects as they imagined them, and to make their pieces more stable.
Junior Class Week 3 - Sculpture (Rock Painting)
This week we painted rocks (by popular demand). We often ask the kids which projects they would like to do again. Rocks are always a winner. To mix it up, the children were encouraged to make a place and an animal or object. Places included stumps, skies, underwater, gardens, mushroom forests, watermelons, and gold bricks (mine-craft).What belonged in these places were just as interesting.
Junior Class Week 2 - Day and Night Scenes - Tonal Contrasts
This week we looked at tonal contrasts – the dark and light shades, and how colours change without the presence of light. We examined how this is present in the world around us by creating artwork that had contrasting day night scenes contained within a small circle. Understand the way their world works through the use of colour…the imaginations of these young people is such an inspiration!
Junior Class Week 1 - Stencil and Stamping
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For our first week of the term the children had fun with stencils and stamping. We looked at how stencils and stamps are used frequently for our everyday aesthetics, art, and in functional settings.
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Working in 2-3 colours the children applied 3 layers.
The first layer using sponges, brushes, rollers and other materials to make a textured background. Then they applied a layer of stamping, followed by a layer of stencilling. Some beautiful patterning and abstraction occurred!
Junior Class Week 10 – Mondrian & Biscuits
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As well as our usual end of term biscuit creations, using our biscuits as a canvas we examined the artist Piet Mondrian. Born in 1906, Mondrian was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, known for pioneering abstract art. Mondrian, reduced his imagery down to simple geometric shapes and then - experimented with equal balances of the 3 primary colours and the 2 shades (red, yellow, blue, black, and white). The children made templates using coloured tape and then transferred this aesthetic to striking bookmarks; just in time for all the reading they hoped to do on their school holidays.
Junior Class Week 8 & 9 – Korean Art
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Lilly-Lee had the pleasure of having artist Yura, a lovely Korean artist who has completed a Curator Degree and has a Doctorate in Art education, majoring in Culture and History; alongside years of experience working as a Curator in Dongsan Museum in Korea. Yura attended Lilly-Lee for 2 weeks doing some Australian work experience and during this time Yura ran our junior projects, teaching the children some traditional Korean methods of painting using ink and delicate Korean paper. The children focused on semiotics - using pictures as icons to describe themselves. This visual self-portrait was a wonderful way for the children to consider how to describe themselves pictorially as a person on the inside. Communicating this with one another allowed them to share more about who they are as individuals, while becoming more knowledgeable about another culture. What a wonderful and meaningful project!
Junior Class Week 7 – Printing – Intaglio/Engraving
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This version of printmaking where the mark making is imprinted into an object and then the image can be transferred. We use this type of printing with money and historical maps. The children did free-hand and used natural objects from the bushland to make their designs.
Junior Class Week 6 – Collage
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This week the children had to get creative and ‘paint’ their artwork using a plethora of different materials, eg, textiles, naturally found flora, buttons, wood, sand, wool, plastics, beads, sequins etc BUT NO PAINT. The children worked hard to find different objects that they could collage to portray their picture using alternative colours and textures.
Junior Class Week 5 – Animation
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Believe it or not, animation dates back to Ancient Greece! This art form that has a long history has now become a dominant art form of our contemporary society.
This week the children looked at the facial expressions of animation. Creating loose, abstract shapes by blowing liquid paint with straws, they then created a variety of facial expressions to produce an animated character. We investigated how much expression can be created by using minimal lines and markings.
Junior Class Week 4 – Charcoal
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The children learnt charcoal techniques using all different varieties of charcoal pencils and charcoal sticks, both soft and hard. With fabulously messy hands the children used these skills to create distant landscapes and up-close objects of bird nests.
Junior Class Week 3 – Cactus Pots
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Our Mother’s Day gifts coincided with an examination of the patterning and vivid earthy tones of South American Aztec Art. Using recycled objects, the children created some lovely low maintenance potted plants. The prosperous Aztec culture of the 15th and 16th century used highly decorative patterning for stone sculpture, architecture, pottery, fabric and body art.
Junior Class Week 2 – Art Show Project
- Layering Colours
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The children’s project for the art show looked at the vibration of colours when layered together. We looked at how Margaret Olley did this in her work. The children added additional patterning of analogous or complimentary colours to create some amazing effects.
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Junior Class Week 1 – Charity Artwork
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In our first week, all 5 classes of our junior students (with the help of our work experience students, from one of our local high schools, Starr and Caitlyn) created a group charity project. This large scale painting was to be auctioned at the Lilly-Lee & St Luke’s Art show in May, with all proceeds going to Mummy’s Wish, a charity that cares for mum’s with cancer. This project was designed to teach the children that our artistry can be used to bring benefit to others in a meaningful way. The children’s artwork ‘My Brisbane’ raised $175, what wonderful teamwork and community spirit!
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Junior Projects - Term 1 2023
Junior Class Week 10 – Bookbinding
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We are very lucky to have the Queensland Bookbinders sharing our studio space at BVAC. With mass production, bookbinding like many crafts is becoming a dying art. Our connection with the Bookbinders Guild has given us a wonderful opportunity to share this skill with the junior students for their last week of the term. We have also been very lucky to have work-experience high school students join us this week who have helped us run the junior classes.
Bookbinding - using traditional methods and traditional materials of paper, card, scrim, backing, glues, and thread. The children made their own stitched spined books.
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Junior Class Week 9 – Biscuits
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Usually, we do our biscuit decorating on the last day of the term. However, this term we will have two grade 11 students from Cavendish Road High School doing work-experience with us, so we will be doing our biscuits one week earlier and something more time intensive next week.
Every week we hone-in on the variety of ways we can be creative by utilising lots of different materials and ideas. Our end of term biscuits provides both an exciting conclusion to our term whilst letting the children see that creativity can be much more than paint and paper. Anything can be a canvas!
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Junior Class Week 8 – Upcycling
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Using donated hot chip cups, week 8 focused on Australian wildflowers. There is a nice connection between recycling in order to be environmentally considerate and being inspired by our natural world. Recycled materials intentionally make up a large portion of the materials used in our Lilly-Lee projects, as the creative art can have a high carbon footprint. It is great when creativity and environmental consciousness can overlap.
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Junior Class Week 7 – Mixed Media Night Skies
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The children got excited this week playing around with lots of mediums to create some spectacular night scenes. We started with brushing and splattering on an acrylic paint undercoat, then applied pastels, oil pastels, and charcoal; and finally blended the colours with blending sticks to create some vivid outcomes. Mixed media always brings out their amazing creativity!
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Junior Class Week 6 – Puppets
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Again, this week we looked at another art form with a long history. Puppetry has been used by makers and creatives to tell stories since the 5th Century BC, however it quickly became an important story telling medium in many countries in ancient times and even in more recent times. Two dimensional puppets were some of the earliest forms of puppetry.
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The children created their own versions of 2D puppets or shadow puppets using paper, watercolour paint, oil pastels, felt pens, and wooden sticks. We used the wax resist technique of using the oil pastels to make our first layer of pattern. The oil pastels resisted the watercolour paint that went on as a second layer, creating amazing effects. The children then had fun using their pieces. See some of the wonderful outcomes below.
Junior Class Week 5 – Mosaics
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Mosaics are one of the oldest forms of art, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia, 3000 BC. Spreading to Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East it is now a method of art that is used world-wide. Long lasting images were made from small cubes of ceramic tiles, stones and glass. As with most art, Mosaics were not just used as decoration, but also to tell stories.
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Students used small strips of paper, a guillotine, cork coasters, and mod-podge glue to create their own Mosaics. We also discussed what would be involved in making a complex pattern for a large-scale mosaic, so using graph paper, the students produced their own interesting patterns.
Junior Class Week 4 – Life Drawing
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Drawing from life is an important drawing process. Copying from photographs and working from our imagination are also important methods but the observational skills that comes from drawing a 3D object from life can identify things we don’t necessarily get to see.
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Our life drawing models in this instance came from the beautiful environment in and outside our studio. A skink, and insects including, a cricket, a dragonfly, ants, and flora which makes up their habitats. We followed up drawing what we saw, with what we know or imagine their habitats would look like and then created what we saw in a 3D form using Packing Popcorn. Some very interesting things were discovered in this observational process.
Junior Class Week 3 – Stain Glass Windows
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Stainglass window’s began with the Ancient Romans and Egyptians, but then became widely used throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Used to create beautiful architecture, decorations and religious storytelling, stained glass work’s on the coloured transparent glass and its interaction with light. Influenced by this interaction and building on the colour mixing we did in week 1, we got creative with acetate, paint pens, ink, and porcelain plate templates. See some of the wonderful outcomes!
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Junior Class Week 2 – Glazes and Colour Theory
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Second week saw us diving straight into colour theory. Playing with glazes and mixed media, we investigated primary colours-mixing to create our secondary colours. We used recycled music paper, sharpies, and layers of transparent acrylic paint. A great project and knowledge base that we will utilise further in week 3.
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Junior Class Week 1 – Weaving
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Textile art has a long history of cross over between function and art. Weaving has been a source of fabric production and design from 3400 BC. We looked at how we use weaving in our everyday and practiced weaving using the practicality of paper strips and mixed media for the decorative aspects.
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Loving the creative ideas, even Darth Vader’s outfit can be improved on with some weaving!
