Oceans of Inspiration

This week in the Art Room we encouraged everyone to dive deep into creativity and make a splash for World Ocean’s Day, which is celebrated internationally in the second week of June.

Our preschoolers took inspiration from a tiny fish ‘with a big imagination’ from Julia Donaldson’s story, Tiddler to create their own mobile shoal of colourful, cardboard fish. Encouraged to reflect the diversity of sea life Tiddler encounters on his underwater adventure, the children cut out and decorated their many fishy shapes with an array of rainbow colours and crafty flotsam and jetsam. We loved the vibrant patterns each sleek line of fish displayed at the end of some really fun-filled sessions.

Afterschool we talked about how artists can reframe our view of the world by choosing a different angle from which to represent a subject. For our seascape paintings, rather than taking a more conventional perspective of looking down into the water or focusing on what floats above it, the children were encouraged to design a composition with a viewpoint from the ocean floor looking upwards to the light above.

Using acrylic paints, the children blended concentric bands of colour that deepened in tone the further away their brushstrokes were placed from a bright, white centre. Next, to give depth and perspective to their underwater scene, the children painted twisting seaweed, coral and shells to frame the many different marine creature that swam around their aquatic environment in inky black silhouette.  What an impact the finished artworks made with their beautiful shapes and colours!

The children’s bold creations complement this year’s Ocean Day theme – Wonder: Sustaining What Sustains Us – that not only raises awareness about the crucial role the ocean plays in our lives and the ways people can help protect them but also highlights our personal connection to the world’s shared seas that continue to support, fascinate and inspire us.