A Fantastic Trip!

At the end of September we spent a wonderful day at Dulwich Picture Gallery. We enjoyed a morning in the gallery, being guided by some very interesting teachers. We spent some time looking at a selection of the paintings in the gallery and learned the stories behind the pictures.

In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to make some art of our own. We looked at an incredible seascape by Ludolf Bakhuizen from 1696. After discussing the picture and looking particularly at the people featured, we began to make our own artwork.

We were lucky to have the opportunity to make a 3D project each; creating a wonderful boat. The first step was to cut out the template of the boat's hull.

Next, we folded it into shape and made a bench to keep the structure steady: 

To make the boat eye catching, we covered it with a collage of printed paper (including some maps, stamps and fantastic patterned wrapping paper):

After that, we used the patterned paper to build a sail, wrapping it around a wooden stick for the mast, then we added a flag to the top. We used a ball of clay under the bench to hold the mast in place.

Once the sails were attached and the flags were flying, we used wire and more patterned paper to add bunting to the boats. The final step was to choose a name for the completed boats.

To end our workshop, our teacher asked us to think of a memorable journey we had taken. Some of us thought of holidays, some remembered visiting friends or family and some children even remembered their journey on their first day of school! We wrote these memories on tags and attached them to our boats. 

Here are some finished boats, we're very proud of them- aren't they wonderful?!