Kate Shaw Landscapes 

Years 5 and 6 have been considering how all artworks can share deep, sometimes hidden meanings. By digging deeper into interpreting artworks, audiences can be challenged and inspired to create change in society.

Kate Shaw’s artwork do just that. Her landscape artworks are made from acrylic and resin mediums and at first glance, look beautiful and serene. When Year 5 and 6 began to question the use of bright, unnatural colour, resin (which forms a plasticky surface) and glitter, we started to consider if there could be more to these landscapes.

As a class we discussed the floating Pacific Garbage Patch, a desolate wasteland in the middle of the Pacific Ocean of floating plastic debris, carried there by tides. We established the connection between human destruction of our natural environments with Kate Shaw’s unnatural landscapes.

The boys then began creating artworks inspired by Kate Shaw, using fluorescent paints, glitter and gloss. We focused on blending analogous colour schemes (colours that are next to one another on the colour wheel), using various blending methods. Year 5 utilised a technique that was an old favourite when they were little… butterfly prints! Whilst Year 6 created marbled painted effects with palette knives.

The boys created symmetrical shapes and spent time considering composition, layering and rearranging their painted paper to create the effect of organic mountain shapes.

The artworks are coming along beautifully. I am looking forward to seeing them completed!

Mrs Burnett – K-6 Art Teacher