Connected Curriculum Art - the Land of Ice and Fire
As part of the Connected Curriculum topic on Volcanoes and Earthquakes, the children in Year 4 learnt about the landscapes and geography of Iceland. Iceland is a fascinating country and known as the Land of Ice and Fire, because it has many active volcanoes and glaciers.
Iceland is also famous for being a place where it is possible to see the northern lights, and many of the landscape pictures the children researched included this natural phenomenon. The children used the landscape art of Heatherbell Barlow, as their inspiration, to understand how to create mood by using warm and cold colours.
Using these artistic skills, it was possible to create the different components of an Icelandic landscape; volcanoes, ice and the northern lights. The volcanoes were sketched from photos of active volcanoes and the stunning colours of the northern lights with oil pastels. However, the most exciting technique used was called marbling, which the children used to create the colours of lava or ice. Marbling involves dropping inks into water and then dipping a sheet of paper into the inky water, which creates a really stunning effect. Once the children had produced the different elements, they were then able to put them together to create their collages. The final results were stunning.
