Art Lessons

All Together – Different Images

Discuss:

A place the group knows well (such as the classroom or school).
Explore with the class the collaborative nature of some Aboriginal art by showing the class artwork by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers particularly Tjanpi Toyota.

Create:

Divide the A3 paper into a grid and assign each student a portion.
Each student completes their square by drawing their own interpretation of that place.
Collate to form a collective picture of Our Place.

Share:

What does the artwork say about the importance of co-operation of a group?
How does this relate to reconciliation?

Artist Reference:

Tjanpi Desert Weavers – Tjanpi Toyota, 2005.
Access at: http://www.tjanpi.com.au/AboutUs/SpecialProjects.aspx

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All Together – Same Image
Discuss:

A place the group knows well (such as the classroom or school).
Explore with the class the collaborative nature of some Aboriginal art by showing the class artwork by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers particularly Tjanpi Toyota.

Create:

Sketch a picture of the well known place discussed.
Divide the A3 paper into a grid and assign each student a portion.
Each student completes their square by colouring, painting, shading or patterning their portion.

Share:

What does the artwork say about the importance of co-operation of a group?
How does this relate to reconciliation?

Artist Reference:
Tjanpi Desert Weavers – Tjanpi Toyota, 2005.

Access at: http://www.tjanpi.com.au/AboutUs/SpecialProjects.aspx

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Different Ways to Say Sorry
Discuss:

The environment your students are connected with and the different ways that people can look at the same thing. For example: an apple may stand for nutrition, computers, gravity, the Beatles or even a home for a worm.
This is called semiotics.
Use Tony Albert's Sorry as a prompt for discussion about semiotics and the meaning of sorry.
Use the video or text of the Apology to help prompt discussion about what sorry means. You can locate this at: http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/our-people/apology-to-australias-indigenous-peoples (text and video)

Create:

Students try drawing “sorry” in different ways using different objects or expressions.
Students choose “their best” object and these form a collage on A3 paper.

Share:

How can we look at our environment from the perspective of others?
Discuss the perspectives of different groups of people: newly arrived migrants, tourists, children, older people, Indigenous people, non-Indigenous people.
How can we be mindful that each of us sees the world differently?
What sorts of things influence the way we interpret things?

Artist Reference:
Tony Albert’s Sorry
Accessed at: http://21cblog.com/tony-albert-sorry-2008/

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Snapshot of Reconciliation
Discuss:

What reconciliation is about and how Australia would ‘look’ if reconciliation were achieved.
How does Jandamarra Cadd show this in his artwork United Journey. Found at: http://jandamarrasart.com/gallery.html

Create:

Students try to represent reconciliation in Australia in one snapshot, as if taking a photograph.
Students could use collage, still life photography or paint to combine their ideas.

Share:

What qualities do people think are important?
What is easy to communicate and what aspects are difficult?

Artist Reference:
Jandamarra Cadd – United Journey, 2007

Access at: http://jandamarrasart.com/gallery.html

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Reconciliation Heroes

Discuss:

People in the community (past and current) who are working towards reconciliation, or promoting Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander rights. Do we know who they are?
Use the List of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have been heroes to prompt discussion.
Use Ricky Maynard’s Still Photos to discuss what makes an effective portrait.

Create:

Student’s photograph/paint/draw/sketch a reconciliation hero. Collage these heroes together on an A3 sheet.
Weave some words about reconciliation or heroes through the collage.

Share:

Invite students to talk about their hero and the artistic representation of them.
Why are these people heroes?
Can we all be heroes in one way or another? How?

Artist Reference:
Ricky Maynard

Access photographs at: http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/maynard/index.php?obj_id=series_02&nav=2

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Changing Australia
Discuss:

Australia Day, its symbols and significance to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
Discuss why some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mark it as Invasion or Survival Day.
Help students imagine Australia Day as a celebration of diversity.
Look at Jeffrey Samuels This Changing Continent of Australia. Discuss how Samuels has used colours to represent how Australia has changed.

Create:

Students are given a small map of Australia.
Students represent a new Australia Day visually, using inclusive symbols and images in their map of Australia.

Artist Reference:
Jeffrey Samuels – This Changing Continent of Australia, 1986

Accessed at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomalli/2283870342/

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Money of Australia
Discuss:

Australian Money and the images on each.
Discuss why each person on the notes and why they might have been nominated to be on the notes and coins.
Look at Darren Siwes, Silver Female. Why has he put an Aboriginal woman on the coin and not the Queen?
What sort of statement is Siwes making about colonisation?
Before creating students might like to research some famous Aboriginal figures.

Create:

Students create a future currency with an Aboriginal perspective.
On A3 paper students document notes and coins in future currency.

Artist Reference:
Darren Siwes, Silver Female, 2008,

Access at: http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=184451

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Shared Flags

Discuss:

The elements that make up the Aboriginal and Australian Flags, and what they represent. You can access online flags at:
- http://www.naidoc.org.au/celebrating-naidoc-week/indigenous-australian-flags/ (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flag)
- http://www.anbg.gov.au/oz/flag.html (Australian Flag)
- What values should our flag represent?
- Discuss whether the Australian flag accurately represents “shared” values.
- Does it say enough about Aboriginal Australia?

Create:

Re-design the Australian Flag to reflect shared values. The new flag should be inclusive for all Australians.
Draw a grid on the A3 paper and each rectangle represents the students new flag interpretation.

Artist Reference:

Aboriginal Flag, Harold Thomas, Access at: http://www.naidoc.org.au/celebrating-naidoc-week/indigenous-australian-flags/

Torres Strait Islander Flag, Bernard Nomak, Accessed at: http://www.naidoc.org.au/celebrating-naidoc-week/indigenous-australian-flags/

Australian Flag, Accessed at: http://www.anbg.gov.au/oz/flag.html

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Mapping
Discuss:

Ways of representing a place by looking at aerial mapping styles in.
Examine Queenie Mckenzie’s Tied to a Tree. Access at http://www.japingka.com.au/paintings.cfm?artistID=19&paintingID=4309
Explain the importance of not copying symbols in Aboriginal art.

Create:

Students then invent their own symbols to mark important places at school eg.play equipment, toilets, classrooms.
Students work together to make a collaborative aerial map of Our Place.
They could use wax crayons and watercolours, or make potato stamps for repetitive symbols.

Share:

Why is sharing space important?
Is Our Place better with lots of contributions from different people?
What are the different things that people value?

Artist Reference:

Queenie Mckenzie, Tied to a Tree

Access at: http://www.japingka.com.au/paintings.cfm?artistID=19&paintingID=4309

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Social Movement

Discuss:

Campaign posters from the 1967 referendum. Access from: http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/referendum/looknlisten.html
Discuss the fact that the Australian Constitution still allows governments to exclude people on the basis of their race.
Discuss videos, blogs and factsheets found at: http://www.youmeunity.org.au/
Does the class think this is fair?

Create:

Students collaboratively design a campaign poster to convince Australians to vote “yes” to change the Australian Constitution.
It has to be persuasive, attractive and relevant for today.

Share:

Campaign ideas for Constitutional Recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians with the class.
What does or should the Constitution say about Australian values?

Artist Reference:

Campaign posters from the 1967 referendum.

Access from: http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/referendum/looknlisten.html

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Our Place
Discuss:

The history of reconciliation
Whether relationships are improving between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
How does the class picture Our Placein 20 years?
What will relationships be like?
What conditions will have changed?
What steps are necessary to get to that place?
Discuss how Jandamarra Cadd displays reconciliation in his artwork United Journey. Accessed at: http://jandamarrasart.com/gallery.html

Create:

Students collectively represent their personal vision for the future.

Artist Reference:
Jandamarra Cadd – United Journey, 2007

Accessed at: http://jandamarrasart.com/gallery.html

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Political Satire
Discuss:

Look at Adam Hill’s Departmental, Developmental, Detrimental. Access at: http://www.harrisongalleries.com.au/artists/adam-hill
Examine the work and explore his use of satire to expose the place of Aboriginal people in contemporary Australia.
What issues does his work raise?
How does his work use humour to communicate difficult issues?

Create:

Students develop their own satirical work about Our Place– they could use cartooning techniques or a storyboard approach to tell the story.
Encourage students to think about double meanings and different interpretations of the phrase “Our Place”– (It could be understood as inclusive but also possessive – excluding others).

The meaning of artworks with each other.
How effective is humour and clever word-play in making a strong statement in art?

Artist Reference:

Adam Hill, Departmental, Developmental, Detrimental

Access at: http://www.harrisongalleries.com.au/artists/adam-hill

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Australia Presently
Discuss:

What is currently happening in the world right now: with the environment, its people, politics, the news, what is on TV?
What their lives are like and what reconciliation looks like today.
How do they imagine the world today is different from the world yesterday?
Examine Austracism by Vernon Ah Kee. Access at: http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=129593

Create:

A ‘word tower’ made of cut out magazine words that describes Our Place (Australia) today.
The words can join together to make a single sentence, or could be random and unconnected.

Share:

What students think is important to create for the future.
How does the class think we can get there?

Artist Reference:

Vernon Ah Kee – Austracism, 2003

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Imagining Australia
Discuss:

What is currently happening in the world right now: with the environment, its people, politics, the news, what is on TV?
What their lives are like and what reconciliation looks like today.
How do they imagine the world today is different from the world yesterday?
Examine Austracism by Vernon Ah Kee. Access at: http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=129593

Create:

A ‘word tower’ made of cut out magazine words that describes Our Place(Australia) in 30 years.
The words can join together to make a single sentence, or could be random and unconnected.

Share:

What students think is important to create for the future.
How does the class think we can get there?

Artist Reference:
Vernon Ah Kee – Austracism, 2003

Access by: http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=129593

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Dreams of Place

Discuss:

Look at Two Men Dreaming by Rover Thomas. Accessed here: http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archived/2004/rover_thomas/index.html
List the colours and shapes you can see.
This painting shows a man with his boomerang and fighting stick next to a waterhole that contains “sweet water”. Find these elements (dark brown – fighting stick and boomerang, light brown-man and black – waterhole).
Are you looking at this country from the ground or the sky?
Why do you think Thomas chose black for the waterhole? (Night the water reflection is black).

Create:

Describe a place known well the children.
Consider how it looks, what you like or dislike about it.
Make a representation of this place by using blocks of colour in different shapes.

Share:

Look at a photo or visit the place and compare the differences.

Artist Reference:

Rover Thomas, Two Men Dreaming

Accessed from: http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archived/2004/rover_thomas/index.html

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Important Things
Discuss:

Look at Ngak Ngak and the Ruined City by Ginger Riley Munduwalawala. Access at: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/58.1999/
Describe the colours you can see.
Imagine you are a bird flying over the country. Describe the things you would see, the temperature and how you would feel.
Find the four key elements of Munduwalawala’s country he often paints. Ngak Ngak (the ancestral sea eagle), the Linmen Bight River, Garimala and Bandian (the two ancestral snakes) and the four Archers rock formations.

Create:

Have students draw something important to them.
Collage the important things on an A3 piece of paper.

Share:

Have children explain their most important thing.

Artist Reference:
Ngak Ngak and the Ruined City, Ginger Riley Munduwalawala.

Accessed from: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/58.1999/

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Romanticisim

Discuss:

Look at Treasure Island by Daniel Boyd. Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=149628&BioArtistIRN=33432&MnuID=2&GalID=33432
What is the map behind the writing?
What do the words Treasure Island mean?
What is meant by Romanticism?
What does it do to an artwork?
Read the explanation about what Daniel Boyd meant by his artwork.

Create:

Students collaboratively brainstorm ways to combine a map and words to create a tongue in cheek response to an Aboriginal Issue.
Collaboratively create an A3 artwork of a map with a phrase to imitate Boyd’s work.

Artist Reference:
Treasure Island by Daniel Boyd. Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=149628&BioArtistIRN=33432&MnuID=2&GalID=33432

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Squares to make Land
Discuss:

Look at Yirrikapayi 2007by Jean Baptiste Apuatimi. Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=163704&BioArtistIRN=17755&MnuID=2&GalID=17755
Describe the colours you can see.
Describe the shapes in the painting.

Create:

Students cut out brown, red, yellow, orange, black and white squares and triangles.
Collage the square and triangles on A3 piece of paper to make a pattern.

Artist Reference:
Yirrikapayi 2007by Jean Baptiste Apuatimi.

Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=163704&BioArtistIRN=17755&MnuID=2&GalID=17755
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A Place

Discuss:

Look at Bagging Potatoes 2004 by Elaine Russell. Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=122184&BioArtistIRN=14874&MnuID=2&GalID=14874
Describe the colours you can see.
Discuss how Aunty Elaine Russell (she is from our area and considered an Elder of the community) uses “standard” colours and outlines her work with a black line.
Brainstorm an important place to all children.

Create:

Have students collaboratively draw a shared place.
Paint the picture then outline with permanent black marker.

Artist Reference:
Bagging Potatoes 2004 by Elaine Russell.

Access at: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/Detail.cfm?IRN=122184&BioArtistIRN=14874&MnuID=2&GalID=14874

The below document contains pictures of some symbols used in Aboriginal Art.

Aboriginal Symbols_0115.pdf