On the 9th of March, Year Ten, Eleven and Twelve art students arose with excitement as we all made our way into the great City Of Sydney to see Art Express and the Archibald. I woke up in the darkness of the morning to meet at the train station for 7am, with the help of coffee and the smiles of my friends we headed in early to get some delicious French pastries for breakfast. At 9am the whole group came together and we excitedly headed to the Art Gallery of NSW; we went into art express and were pleasantly greeted with the level of creativity, talent and original ideas of prior Year Twelve students' pieces.
Everyone seemed to really enjoy the video art, along with the photography and drawings. I particularly liked the sculpture with all different old books which has been cut up, burnt, and manipulated to give them personality and meaning. Everyone received each others feedback as we sat outside enjoying some lunch under the sun so we could be rejuvenated to see the famous Archibald.
This year's Archibald was overflowing with Australian talent and everyone enjoyed seeing some well known faces being displayed, a favourite amongst the group was the little Aboriginal boy who was painted with a staggering amount of realism, my personal favourite was Anthony Bennet whose style I fell in love with and consequently voted for him for people choice! After soaking up all the art works from the day, I think everyone walked out of the gallery more inspired for their own artworks and were ready to either take their tired feet home, or frolic around the city a little longer.
Mrs Morton, teaches our Primary School children art. Here she shares some of what the children are creating in class.
Kindy are doing an Art Unit this Term on People. The portraits are of themselves – "God made me I am Special". I taught them how to draw a portrait dividing the face into regions and placing their features in the correct spots. The results were fantastic. They are now hanging proudly in the Junior Library.
The bodies with their photographed faces were our first 2 lessons. Another part of God made me. We talked about what we wear and colours. Warm and Cool colours, the shoes are meant to be in cool colours. Very cute.
Year 1 – are doing an art Unit on Celebrations and Events. I have taken a number of photo’s of their completed artworks. The first represent a Personal Event/Celebration – their Birthday Party. The children were asked to include a number of things they might find at their birthday party. It is a crayon masterpiece.
The 2nd is an Historical Event – Man landing on Moon. After discussing Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and the meaning of Historical the children used a number of mediams to create their rocket landing on the moon. They look fantastic.
Year 2 - are doing a Unit on Other Living Things. The photo’s taken are of their pencil sketches of Australian Animals. Emu’s and Koala’s. We discussed different drawing techniques. How to shade and cross hatch. How to look intently and how to be detailed.
Year 3 – are doing a Unit on Places and Spaces. The artworks photographed show their first work – a sketch and then water colour of their family home. (Exterior). The 2nd group of photo’s show the kids doing an (interior) sketch/collage of their bedroom. Both turned out brilliantly.
Each Year Covenant students participate in a mission trip to an Aboriginal community in Queensland. Students raise their own funds in a variety of creative ways. Lina Han in Year 10 has made some amazing origami creations which she is selling to raise funds. They are amazing works of art and have taken hours and hours to make!
1. Little Bottles With Swans , stars or boxes in them - $5.00
2. Paper Dolls - $15.00
They would make good presents for someone with Christmas coming! They are displayed in on a table in the staffroom.
In August, Covenant Year 7 and 8 students were invited to go on a Visual Arts Camp with Tyndale Christian School.
We woke up early on Wednesday morning and went on the bus to the Winmalee Christian Conference Centre near the Blue Mountains. We arrived at morning tea time and were allocated our cabins. We met the Tyndale students, had lunch then were off on our first activity.
We went for a bush walk. We had to collect leaves, gum nuts and anything we found interesting. After this (which was very tiring) we went to an outdoor ‘chapel’. We sat on the benches and our task was to draw a piece of bush in front of us, some drew trees, some drew bushes and others drew gum nuts.
After that we came back and studied different artist’s techniques. We used different 2D media to make our own piece of art. Some students used oil pastels, paint and twigs to bring out the first colours.
We had dinner, and some people swam in the heated pool (which was actually quite cold). We had supper and devotions, played games and went to bed.
The next morning we woke up late, had breakfast (which was exquisite), finished off our paintings from the day before, had a devotion by Mr. Rusin, then we listened to a visiting artist who gave us some inspiration.
Our next workshop was ceramics. We made pieces that resembled nature, the shape, texture and patterns of each one was different. We had lunch and then started a printmaking workshop. We were shown how to do a lino print, a collagraph and a lithograph. We could choose to do two of these printing methods. Each student had to do part of a large picture of a tree, in the end they would all be joined together. Since each student did two prints it meant that two large tree pictures could be made, one for school each school.
After this, we had dinner, watched Benchwarmers, had supper, and went to bed. We were all exhausted from the day’s art.
The next day was the last. We had our Art Exhibition and wandered around, marveling at the work people had done. We went on the flying fox, after that, we had a BBQ lunch, packed our bags, and after a tearful goodbye, went home. On the way back, everyone was happy to be going home, but still missing our new friends. We look forward to seeing them again at the beach.
Thank you Teachers for giving us this experience, we will never forget it.
This year's HSC Major Works for Design & Technology were showcased on Thursday 4th September. Fusion evening is always a wonderful opportunity to see a side of the students that very few of us ever see. Through their artwork and design, many of the issues that students are dealing with, the thoughts that they have for improving their world and just their practical ideas for making life more enjoyable come to the fore. This year’s fusion evening was certainly no exception with many outstanding projects on display.
Amongst the display was an innovative single lounge chair that easily converts to a bed designed by Marleta Fong; an “eco-friendly” magazine developed by Rochelle Layland and some beautiful pastel drawings in the Pre-Raphaelite style titled “The Beloved, Family Symbols” by Emily Fraser.
It’s a delight to see the way that God has given us such a diverse range of gifts, and even more pleasing is to see the way this comes to light through the students work. The evening is always complimented by an abundance of delicious food provided by the hospitality team. Jazz also punctuates the air as Mrs Rachel Collis provides great entertainment through piano and voice.
I hope you enjoy a snapshot of some of the students work.
During Week 7 of this term, the children participated in the Junior School Art Show. Each class created some amazing artworks which were displayed for both visitors and students to view. The theme of the Art Show was ‘God’s Amazing Creations’ and each class presented some works which reflected the many beautiful gifts our God has blessed us with throughout the world.
Some classes created beautiful plants, flowers and animals while others created the moon and stars. These artworks were prepared using a variety of techniques such as clay modeling, painting, etching and wax rubbings.
The works were displayed for a number of days and the week culminated with a special Art Show Assembly. We were very blessed to have many talented artists showing their work during the assembly and telling the children how God had gifted them with amazing artistic skills.
During Week 7 of this term, the children participated in the Junior School Art Show. Each class created some amazing artworks which were displayed for both visitors and students to view. The theme of the Art Show was ‘God’s Amazing Creations’ and each class presented some works which reflected the many beautiful gifts our God has blessed us with throughout the world.
Some classes created beautiful plants, flowers and animals while others created the moon and stars. These artworks were prepared using a variety of techniques such as clay modeling, painting, etching and wax rubbings.
The works were displayed for a number of days and the week culminated with a special Art Show Assembly. We were very blessed to have many talented artists showing their work during the assembly and telling the children how God had gifted them with amazing artistic skills.
For the past six weeks, a group of seven students from Years 5 and 6 have been hastily preparing for the TOM competition. This is a problem solving competition between schools from all over Australia. Mrs Kohlhoff and Mrs Kalinin were the teachers in charge of our team, yet were not allowed to give us any ideas at all.
Last Saturday was the big day. Our team had to do a Spontaneous Challenge first. For this challenge we had four minutes to explain why a barking fish and a mug of hot oil were found in a cottage in the woods. We were a little hesitant at first, but came up with some decent responses. We would rate our performance a six out of ten … hopefully the judges would have given us more.
We also had to present a Long Term Challenge. This was a performance that had to last for a maximum of ten minutes. We chose to do the Literature challenge. Our task was to create a new genre that would suit three different authors - Anthony Horowitz, Emily Rodda and Jackie French. The most creative part about our presentation was the singing. We all enjoyed the acting. Making the props was the most challenging and of course we had a major problem … the silly backdrop kept falling down. We are not sure how well we went but we do know that the winner of the Language Literature section was St Andrews Cathedral School. Our team did really well anyway and we had a lot of fun as well as a lot of stress. We strongly recommend that anyone in Year 4 should try out next year.
Our team was made up of:
- Susannah Chapman (her script writing was fantastical)
- Daniel Blumer (his acting was superb)
- Brian O'Callaghan ( full of great ideas)
- Emily Johnson (also a great script writer)
- Zoe Hilton (made the whole team a happy group)
- Jessica Davis (kept us on task and helped with the script)
- Sam Watson (maker of great props)
Thanks so much to Mrs Kohlhoff and Mrs Kalinin. We couldn't have done this without you.
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