Integrating Celtic calligraphy into our art

On this 2nd project "The Art of Asking Questions" we provided for inspiration a couple of printed letter books. One with old fashion printing fonts and the other with intrinsic Celtic calligraphy. Also letter stamps and different art materials brushes, watercolour and acrylics, oil pastels...and so on. We talked about friendship and what sort of interests do they share with their friends and what would they like to know about their new friends in Australia. They were asked to incorporate one question only in their art work which took them a while to decide since naturally they were curious about many things. It was suggested to add a letter with their artwork if they thought a question was too little to express. But eventually they were happy with painting while talking about all the possible questions. The interesting thing was in order to cultivate this friendship they thought of asking questions about their opinions on certain topics. Topics that are relevant to them now and not so much about differences of lifestyles between Australia and Ireland which we also talked about but they decided to focus on what do they have in common instead of what it was different.

Another enjoyable session that could have last for hours. Thank you!

Marta, Carol & Gabrielle

Derreen home schoolers in Derreen, Ireland are making and sharing art with the homeschoolers in Geelong, Australia.

Exploring and making with the artists in China!

Hey! Dear You!

In order to understand the foreign pen pals well, the headteacher Miss Diao Yangyang led the students to visit the website of Sneinton C of E Primary School before doing the second project. They also visited the website of Dear You for the first time art works and creative process of the British children.

The children are very excited when they read the news. They had a lot of questions to ask their foreign friends, such as: What do they learn at school? How to have classes? Do they have homework? What do they usually eat for lunch? What animals are in their city?

After that, the children began to discuss in groups, thinking how to express their questions in art form. Some children thought to make greeting cards, hiding the question paper in them; some wanted to write down the questions with brush pens;  some wanted to use the form of the combination of paper-cut and painting ; some chose to write the questions on the origami etc.

After discussing and defining their own artistic expression, the children came home and turned their problems into a piece of art with appropriate materials.

Best wishes,
Lisa

The artists in Grade 3 (9-10 years old) at Taizhou Pheonix Primary School in Jiangsu, China are making and sharing art with the artists in Class 4 (8-9 years old) at Sneinton C of E St Stephens Primary School in Nottingham, England Both groups are aged 8-9 years old.

Friendship grows between the artists in UK and China!

The children at Sneinton Church of England Primary School have once again had a fantastic time completing their next piece of artwork for the Dear You Art Project. It all started with great excitement by opening the envelope containing artwork from our partner school. The children were fascinated by the self portraits, as well as the questions they had sent in Chinese writing. All of the pupils commented on how beautiful this writing was, and how it was like an art form in itself, which led perfectly onto the next project, where the focus was font and text. 

To simulate discussion about different fonts and text types, we used a powerpoint created by Heather to discuss the varying fonts we have in our classroom and how each of them made me feel. It was very interesting to hear the children's views on how one font may suggest somebody was scared, and another one may imply that somebody is very serious and possibly earns lots of money! They were fascinated by how a font can tell you so much about the artist and their message! 

As a class, we then talked about how we use questions in everyday life to find out information about people's lives and interests. Each child came up with a question to ask their partner student, and then thought about how they were going to present it. We talked about using different sized letters, stencils, different textures, as well as a variety of fonts. We then created a piece of artwork by drawing the questions using lots of different fonts! The children were concentrating so well and they really enjoyed trying a new art form. We hope you enjoy our artwork! 

Sincerely,
Alice Wilby

The artists in Class 4 (8-9 year olds) at Sneinton C of E St Stephens Primary School in Nottingham, England are making and sharing art with Grade 3 (9-10 year olds) at Taizhou Pheonix Primary School in Jiangsu, China.

What? How? When? Why? Where? Let's make it!

We had a lot of fun with our latest project thinking up questions to ask our new friends from Finland. None of us has ever been to Finland - it seems a long way away right up there at the top of the world!

Before we started our project we talked a lot about the kinds of things we would like to know about boys and girls of our age from a different country. We looked at various examples of typography and graphic design. We also practiced writing our names on the computer in Word using different fonts, sizes, colours and features.

We tried to make the art works containing our questions look interesting by using different writing styles and trying our hand with special designs and graphics. We can’t wait to find out the answers to our questions. We’re also really excited  to read your questions for us!

Looking forward to our next big envelope!

All the best,
Everyone in K/1HT

The K1HT class from Bulli Public School in Bulli, Australia are making and sharing art with the Monkeys from Your School in Espoo, Finland. Both groups are 5-6 year old artists.