How to build a flower.

In Autahi, we love to use our art projects to develop new art skills, such as observational sketching and colour blending.

Our latest art piece looks deceptively simple. But it has been an epic production with many steps and much learning. We have been making it alongside our Inquiry learning about Growing and Changing as this has including a lot of work on plants and flowers.

Now that our artwork is finished and on display, we wanted to share our process with you.

Using real flowers and leaves for reference, we began by painting some sheets of paper. This was a good opportunity to practice colour mixing and blending. We tried to make a smooth gradation between two different colours, for example white and pink.

We also painted some leafy greens.

Next, we did some detailed observational sketches of flowers and plants. Using oil pastels, we used our knowledge of plants to draw stems and roots onto a black sheet of paper. We were careful to leave space to add the flowers and leaves afterwards.

Using real flowers as models again, we went on to draw large petal shapes. We chose the petal shapes we liked best and made them into stencils.

Carefully, we drew around our petal stencils onto our painted paper. Then, we cut out our petals, which was a great scissor-skills challenge.

We arranged our petals on our artworks and checked we were happy with the positioning before we stuck them down. Some of us also added some extra flower details using oil pastels.

With our petals completed and stuck onto our flowers, we turned our attention to the leaves.

We began by looking at some leaves from the school garden and sketching some different leaf shapes.

We chose our favourite leaf shape and made it into a template.

Using these, we drew leaves onto our pre-painted paper and cut them out.

Then, we spent time arranging our leaves on our pictures, choosing the best positions before sticking them in place.

We are very proud of our finished art and love the way the each flower is unique, expressing what each person knows and has noticed about flowers and plants.

 

Please come and visit us soon and enjoy the stunning garden of flowers on our walls!