Making Christmas Cards

I usually make a range of Christmas Cards early in October. Providing me with a selection to hand out to colleagues, friends and family at that festive time of year.

This year it was December before I knew it and I was making cards with my class. We used a range of left of pieces from previous years and I posted samples that I had been their inspiration. The challenge was the children then had to make their own version mixing up the ideas.

The range help to cater for all the different abilities in our hub and the mixing of ideas gave children who I had worked with before the opportunity to challenge themselves. Although this year I did very little to help them. Once they had made 3 cards they could go a step further and try one that also left the recipient with a tree decoration.


Everyone found this a little trickier keeping all the pieces still, trying to hold the ribbon straight, giving yourself enough ribbon to go around the first bead and then add a little more to create the illusion of a tree. But we did it we made 25 in an hour. Most people start from the bottom of the tree we started from the top using a double over hand knot so the decoration could hang on the tree.

We then pushed the string and knot through a star shaped bead (to hide the knot).

Each turn we added more ribbon. After about 8 beads we stopped. and tied them off using 2 single over hands..

The finished product on silver cards made the decoration stand out. We we attached using double sided tape, so it was easy to pull off.

Then I challenged myself, I love the idea of love hope joy and peace all through the year but at Christmas time especially to I thought how to best represent this. I looked at a lovely wooden decoration with a heart, anchor and cross that I received when I was younger. To get the heart and anchor to stay in shape I would need a wire (which I didn't have). So I  tried the cross.

CRL - City Rail Link

Following the brief sent from the City Rail Link Project under the theme ‘Imagine where you’d like to go on a train’.  We could use any art medium (paint, felt-tips, etc) we wish but they wanted the artworks to be bright.

We have been working to create different destinations we would like to visit possibly by train.  we experimented with pastels and paint then water colour pencils which was the final medium we decided to go with.

Here is our mock up of the possible final piece...

 

Art Alley Update

Originally the fence was green on one side and grey on the other and many of our students come through the alley to get to school. Once our new school build has been completed this alley will be close to the visitors car park and so we though we would brighten it up.

Here you can see us starting to make improvements using stripes, the colours from the new school logo.

Painting the Alleyway Fence

Our Community is Home Project.

 Whanākitanga wanted to brighten up the Alleyway to Lelani Ave.

We have been waiting for Sunny Thursday Mornings to brighten up the Alleyway Fence. We have designed a series of murals for the corrugated iron fence and for the wooden panel fence we designed individual panels to represent a range of children and what is important in their lives.

For the wooden fence we thought about what makes us unique, our families, cultural and likes. We looked at our favourite food, games, books, places, clothes, patterns that represent our culture and or family. We experimented with different colours to best represent our images and backgrounds for them to stand out on.

For the iron fence we thought about images that represent the various cultures in our school. Our new logo, our school values, myths and legends. This side of the fence doesn't see a lot of sun in the mornings so hopefully we will get some sunny days so we can paint our murals in the afternoon.