Watercolour Painting

Here are some of the watercolour techniques I needed to think about in order to produce this amazing painting:

Choose a broad brush and use it to wash the paper with water
Switch to a finer brush; wet it and then dab it dry on a paper towel
Select a colour, starting with the palest
Look closely at the colours and shapes you see
Add a bit of detail to show flowers or leaves
Try not to leave any of the paper blank
Dab the last of the water off with the paper towel
Leave it in the sun to dry

Why not come to the classroom and take a closer look at my painting? I would love to know what you think of it.

Sketching at Chateau de Penthes

Yesterday we took our clipboards, some stiff white cartridge paper and a 3B drawing pencil to Chateau de Penthes. We were going to do some sketching.

I decided to draw the view towards the lake and the mountains. Take a look at my sketch.



How do you think it compares with the real thing?

Where in the world? continues.....

"The King of England borrowed an army helicopter to go somewhere and landed in his girlfriend's garden."

Isabella saw this on the news; she said Prince William wanted to surprise his girlfriend.

"People are cross with him because he took the helicopter and he didn't even pay!"

Cave Painting (or drawing on the white chalk with a blackboard)

During our Unit of Inquiry on Materials, we started reading the book, 'Stig of the Dump' by Clive King. Stig is a caveman who lives at the bottom of an old quarry close to Barney's grandmother's house. Barney finds Stig one day when he falls through the roof of Stig's den. They become friends, even though they cannot talk to each other.

Since the quarry is no longer in use, people throw all their rubbish away down there; Stig is good at finding new ways in which to use old things.

On the same day that they cut down an enormous tree (getting warm once in the process) and then use it to start a fire (getting warm for the second time) Stig picks up a piece of charred wood and uses it to draw an amazing hunting scene on the chalk wall of the den.

Then we had a go at using charcoal and chalks to make our own hunting scene. We dusted the paper with charcoal powder and smudged it to give it a greyish background. Then we used charcoal and chalk to make our scene.



"I like yours because I like the way you designed it," said Max.

Tuesday Newsday - Where in the World?

With our current unit in mind, this week we tried to tell 'Where in the World' our news happened.

"They have discovered the world's oldest living tree in Sweden. It is a spruce tree that is nearly 10,000 years old. It was discovered in 2004 and its age has been found by American scientists using Carbon Dating ."
(Max explained to us that this is a complicated way of using something - called 'radioactivity' - to tell the age of something).

Mapping the school

We asked ourselves; how can we show what our school looks like? After taking a walk around the school, we had a go at trying to make a record of everything; from the classrooms to the kitchen, the music room to the French rooms and the library.

Take a look at mine. "I found it a little hard but I liked doing it. First I drew the rectangle for the outline of the whole school. Then I filled in the middle. The first room I did was 2i. I did half up and half downstairs. I think maybe someone could use my map to find their way."



How does it compare with the real thing?

Paper

This is paper. I don't exactly know what kind of paper but it is transparent.



"I think it's greaseproof paper because it is shiny," Max tells us. "It is translucent because it lets the light through," he adds.