In Ahi Kaa we have been enjoying our Rocket Inquiry so much that we decided to take inspiration from Peter Thorpe and create our own rocket art. Peter Thorpe is an American artist, illustrator and writer who is well known for his beautiful book cover designs and striking paintings of outer space and rockets. After studying Peter's paintings, we were fired up and ready to create our own. We used a range of media to create our rocket art; pastel for the rocket with a focus on blending; paint for our abstract space-themed backgrounds and tissue paper or card for the flames! The children worked so hard on these paintings and are very proud of them - we think Peter would be too!

"I started the rocket paintings in the 1980s as a way to use paint that I would have otherwise thrown away. After each commercial job I did, there would be a pallet half full of paint left over and it pained me to toss it, but the next painting required a new pallet. It finally occurred to me that I could easily paint an abstract background on a blank board or canvas with the leftover paint”. "But, what should I do with the abstracts?" "I started to do figures, landscapes, and, as a long time space fan, rockets and planets on top of the backgrounds. Some of the figures and landscapes got noticed, but everyone loved the rockets” - Peter Thorpe.