Can you remember doing this fantastic art project last year and then entering your work into a class at Great Eccleston show? Ted won first prize with his collage of a tiger hiding in the tropical plants inspired by Henri Rousseau's painting 'Tiger In A Tropical Storm Surprised'.

It was a really fun and rewarding project that we all enjoyed. The children learnt and practised new skills as we worked through each stage. We began by looking closely at Henri Rousseau's painting  'Tiger In A Tropical Storm Surprised', asking questions and making observations about the colours, style of painting and the content. 

Then we watched a short video on Youtube by a fabulous art teacher in America called Cassie Stephens 'Learn the Elements of Art! While Drawing A Tiger' and followed the steps she shows on the video to draw our large tiger faces. We created the textured paper as the base for our Tiger's face by painting a piece of paper with different shades of orange paint (which the children mixed themselves) and then by rolling and dragging different objects and printing tools to leave lines and impressions in the paint before it dried. Year 1 and 2 drew the face and two paws using oil pastels whilst the Reception children used pencils and wax crayons. We also read one of our favourite stories 'The Tiger Who Came To Tea' by Judith Kerr and used her illustrations to inspire our drawings. Have a look at this first group of photos to see the stages ... 

Tiger faces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we looked on the internet at other children's art along the same theme and found a brilliant collage using the same ideas we had used from Cassie Stephens inspiring us to create something similar.  We chose to place our tigers faces behind tropical flowers, plants and leaves, like Rousseau had painted the tiger hiding in the plants.  We used lots of different materials and skills to make our foliage have different textures and create an impressive 3D effect!  Again we used our observation skills and looked closely at photos of tropical plants and some real plants (even though they weren't tropical ones!) to study colour and line.  Have a look at this group of photos to see what we did ...

Tropical Plants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were so proud of the finished collages and so happy for Ted when he won first prize at our local agricultural show. Have a look at these photos of them ...

Tiger Collage