In Art, Year Two have been learning all about collage. To begin, the boys and girls explored what happens when we mix colours. Using the primary colours, the children mixed red and yellow, blue and yellow, and blue and red to create the secondary colours, which they then painted onto a colour wheel.
During this unit of work, the children learned about the French artist, Henri Matisse. Later in his life he started to create collages, a process which he called painting with scissors. Year Two learned about one of Matisse’s most famous collages – The Snail. Did you know, The Snail measures three metres square? The boys and girls were amazed to discover that it would just about fit in their classroom. The children identified the primary and secondary colours in Matisse’s work and learned that he deliberately put certain colours side by side to make them stand out. Next it was the children’s turn to paint with scissors. They thought carefully about where to arrange each piece of coloured paper to create their very own version of The Snail.
Next, the children explored some more colour mixing. This time, they added white to orange to create a lighter colour (tint) and black to create a darker colour (shade). Once they had created lots of variations of orange, the children used their work to create their final piece – a burning skyline. When they were told to tear up their painted sheets, the boys and girls were quite surprised but quickly started to have fun. They then arranged the paper into the shape of a fire before adding a skyline silhouette.
