| Approach: Independent |
Level:
Year 4
and year 8 |
|
| Focus:
Students
can create an expressive painting from an imaginative idea, showing
a variety of shapes, detail, colour mixing and spatial effect.
|
| Resources:
Video recording
on laptop computer, cue card,. Per student: B3 green sugar paper,
flat no 8 brush, flat no 6 brush, round no 10 brush, 6-hole palette,
A1 polythene desk cover, white chalk, sponge, water, mixing card,
plastic cups, acrylic paints: white, yellow, ochre, scarlet, blue,
purple. |
| Time:
45 mins
|
 |
14.1Mb |
|
|
|
Questions/instructions:
This activity uses
the computer.
Seat students around the computer, away from their table spaces.
Keep the chairs at the computer rather than allowing them to be taken
back to tables. Students stand to paint.
In this activity you will be making a painting. On your table you each
have a piece of chalk for planning your picture, and a palette with
six colours of paint. With these colours you can make almost any other
colours you want by mixing and blending your paints. You can mix colours
directly on the painting. You will need to mix white with your colours
to help them show upon the paper. If you need more paint you can ask
me, because we have plenty. You also have three different kinds of paint
brushes, some water and two pieces of sponge. Use one piece of sponge
to clean and dry your brush each time before you change to a different
colour of paint. Sometimes you can use your brushes, your fingers or
a piece of sponge to paint with. They will give you different kinds
of marks.
You will have 45 minutes to make your picture, and
I want you to use all of that time for painting.
Now listen carefully as I explain what your painting is to show. It
might help if you close your eyes and try to see in your imagination
what I am explaining.
Encourage students to close their eyes as they listen to the following
description.
Imagine you
are a sea creature hanging about looking for somewhere to feed and
hide, but your space is full of emptiness.
It’s so dull and uninteresting for you. You’ve got nothing
but water.
What you would really like is a beautiful, magical underwater garden
with all sorts of unusual and wonderfully coloured magical plants
and rocks.
You want your life in the water to be bright, interesting and full
of fun.
In your painting you are going to paint this magical garden with some
plants that are overlapping and unusually exciting to look at, play
in and hide in. These will be make-believe plants – plants that
are big, bright and magical in their colours and overlapping shapes.
There might be underwater caves to swim through and rocks to hide
under.
When you look up the plants in your garden will create wonderful dappled
patterns of light rippling on the surface of the water.
Open your eyes now and look at the video which will also help you
to think about the plants in your magical underwater garden, and the
way they clump together and behind each other.
Click the
Underwater Garden button. The video will start.
|
|
[No
voiceover; soundtrack of atmospheric music only]
|
You’re
going to start your paintings now, but here are three things to
remember.
Show and read aloud the cue card, then instruct students
to commence work.
Students shouldn’t spend more than two or three minutes sketching
with the chalk. Give guidance where necessary.
When 10 minutes remain:
You have 10 minutes left for painting. See how much you can get
done in that time. Don’t stop painting until it is time to
stop. |
|
When
time is up:
It’s time to stop painting now. Stand back and have a good
look at your picture, then come and sit on a chair.
Conclude the activity with a brief informal discussion when
students talk about what they thought of the video (not their own
paintings). |
|
| |
%
responses
2003 ('99) |
| y4
|
y8 |
[click on graph
for enlargement] |
Key
attributes: (0 low – 3 high) |
|
|
| expressiveness:
relevant image;
development of mood;
objects and symbols;
originality;
avoidance of cliche |
1.07
(1.24) |
1.61
(1.53) |
| composition:
depth – overlapping, receding space;
variety of shapes;
coherence |
0.99 (1.06) |
1.48
(1.41) |
| detail:
finer features included;
diversity of objects;
symbols (preserving coherence);
appropriate
use of textures, patterns |
0.90
(1.00) |
1.32
(1.34) |
| use
of media:
appropriate use of tools
choice and mixing of colours
control of paint, confidence |
1.09
(1.12) |
1.54
(1.49) |
| Global
rating:
(0 low – 5 high) |
1.39
(1.49) |
2.18
(2.09) |
Commentary
In this trend task, the work produced by students in 2003 was compared
with a carefully selected sample of the work produced by students in 1999.
Both sets of work were assessed by the same team of teacher markers. At
both year 4 and year 8, differences from 1999 to 2003 were small on mean
scores in the analytic marking of key attributes, and in the mean global
ratings. Mean scores for year 4 students tended to the lower end of the
four-point rating scale, while mean scores for year 8 students tended
towards the middle of the rating scale. Although students were provided
with rich visual and aural stimulus information prior to painting, few
were able to use this successfully for developing personal imaginative
statements and to use the medium of paint with confidence.
|
UNDERWATER
GARDEN EXEMPLARS –
Key criteria: expressive/imaginative, composition / space / shapes,
details, media skills.
[click
on pictures to enlarge] |
MID
RANGE EXEMPLARS:
The text offers possible answers to two diagnostic questions: What
can the student do? Where to next? |
 Bold
flat mixed colours and strong independent shapes with some surface
details create an underwater garden that offers symbols for plant
variety, caves and a possible sense of movement between each area.
The most elaborated and contrasting shape is placed centrally in
the painting. This has the effect of stopping movement.
The student has considerable control over the media but is yet to
explore arrangements involving overlapping shapes which would create
depth. There is scope for providing surface details beyond spots. |
 |
 The
student has created a network of lines of varying thickness and
colour. Some of the colours are mixed. The lines grow from all of
the edges of the painting (as if each side of the painting is a
baseline) and sometimes overlap. The response is an inventive valid
solution to the problems the task offers. The effect is almost like
a linear map of a playground maze.
A number of students in this range began to treat the painting as
a flat pattern. In terms of the student’s painting skills,
however, the paint is often handled like a drawing medium. The line
length is determined by what can be achieved by a single brushstroke.
The student is now faced with the strategic challenge of how to
paint the spaces in between the lines. If the student had preplanned
their response in chalk they might have realized that they needed
to lay down background surfaces first. |
|
 Two
bold shapes of interesting profile dominate the composition in an
interlocking and coherent way. We are drawn as viewers to the yellow
light-filled space by the light contrasting colour and the pushing
- yielding tension of the two forms against one another. The colours
are moody with a preference for yellow and purple contrasts. The
shapes have been outlined in a dark blue line which begins to give
a shading effect. Paint has been applied to give brush strokes,
a dabbing motion and soft sponge stippling in separate areas. Many
of these decisions are likely to be intuitive but still demonstrate
a refined sensitivity to thinking in paint.
The student would benefit from being shown how to give three-dimensional
effect to a form through blended shading in paint and being set
a challenge that required overlapping shapes to build a sense of
depth. Given their skills in shape the student might find collage
a supportive entry point to the challenge of overlapping. |
|
 The
student has carefully planned some major structures to the painting
to indicate caves, rocks, plant variety and movement. At this stage
in the work the colours are mixed but applied flatly, each shape
having its own unique colour. None of the shapes overlap and there
is no indication of how the student might handle the background.
Many students reach an impasse when they approach painting as if
it is a series of separate objects that are dealt with independently.
The opportunity to approach painting as a multi-visited task is
unfortunately not possible within this assessment task. Students
would benefit from learning a painting strategy where background
effects are laid down first then shapes, modifications and details
are applied over this at later stages when the first layer of paint
is dry. |
|
 This
student has strategically built up an image in layers which are
evocative of rocks and concealing, fluidly-moving weed. Viewers
can unearth, a little like an archaeological puzzle, the earlier
commitment to three bold plants in purple, red and green and some
yellow and dark green rock shapes. These have been concealed by
painted textures and flowing seaweed rhythms. A red base line has
been added near the conclusion of the painting time.
The image risks being lost in a flurry of brushstrokes perhaps better
suited to background treatment. The base line destroys the effect
of overlapping depth by re-establishing a flattened foreground.
This may have been a last attempt to provide a still point to all
the movement. Giving definite shape to some of the foreground flowing
seaweed would have been more successful in creating contrast of
stillness and movement. The strong background forms are so concealed
that they are having difficulty peeking through and providing the
structure to the composition that they initially provided. |
| LOW
RANGE EXEMPLARS: |
|
| HIGH
RANGE EXEMPLARS: |
|
|
