The tamariki have begun their art lessons with so much enthusiasm and excitement, it has been infectious!

Our focus this term is "Creative Aotearoa," with a particular emphasis on New Zealand's native birds (manu), insects, landscapes, and flora and fauna. Here’s what our artists have been up to so far:

Koroī - Each of the Koroī classes will create a sculpture of either a kiwi, tui, piwakawaka, or ruru. We have begun working on our tinfoil armatures for our NZ manu. We've attached beaks, wings, and tails, and our next step is to learn how to use plaster cast cloth to cover our tinfoil armatures in preparation for painting.

Kūkupa - Agamographs are 3D artworks that create an optical illusion when viewed from different angles. The Kūkupa classes have been developing their sketching techniques, and each child has picked a NZ native bird or insect of their choice to sketch. Our next step is to learn about 'warm' and 'cool' colours and how to blend oil pastels so we can add beautiful, vibrant colour to our sketches.

Mata Whanaunga - Spring has sprung early in our Mata Whanaunga art classes. We aim to capture the beauty of the well-known Hagley Park blossom trees, so we've had to become experts in watercolour painting! Our first lesson involved mark-making, learning how to lighten and darken colours when painting with watercolours, and using the 'wet-on-wet technique.' Our backgrounds are nearly complete, and the next step is to use ink to create the trunks and branches of our blossom trees.

Kāmata - We read "Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Stars" by Kat Quin and were inspired by the beautiful dawn colours in the picture book. We discussed the best colours to depict a dawn background and decided on purple, orange, pink, and yellow. We then practised our watercolour painting techniques and created a beautiful dawn background using 'dotting' and blending. Our next step is to begin creating a Flit the Fantail silhouette collage.