Starry Nights

To create these captivating mixed media artworks, the students first examined the elements of Vincent Van Gogh's famous Starry Night artwork. There were some very mature and interesting group discussions about the meaning behind Van Gogh's Starry Night artwork; some students thought that the swirls in the starry night sky symbolised wind, others thought it symbolised rain, and some students thought the swirls represented light reflections. In the end we all thought that the most important and dominant elements were the houses, the tree, the moon, stars and swirls in the sky. 

The year 1 and 2 students learnt about the art element of tone, when they painted the blue backgrounds. The next step of the artwork was to create the paper collage pieces including; a moon, a tree and as many houses as they wished. Some students got very creative and carefully stuck on little windows and doors. The final steps to complete these masterpieces was using the oil pastels to create the swirls in the sky and glueing on the special stars.

During the reflection lesson, I asked the students what their favourite step was during the creation of these artworks and many said they enjoyed using the oil pastels. One Grade 1 student said "It was fun creating the swirls in the sky because you got to be really free and go a little bit crazy!" It was great that no two students Starry Night artworks were exactly the same - they were all unique, different and individual. If only I could put everyone's Starry Night artworks up on display... they were all so amazing!