22 NEMP Report 2: Art 1995

In this activity you are going to draw a picture of a make-believe creature called a firebird.

This is not an ordinary picture of ordinary things. It is apicture that comes from your imagination. An exciting, brightand colourful picture, using your own ideas and all of yourimagination.

You have crayons and pastels to work with. Try to use themso that the colours and shapes are really strong, bright andexciting.

You will need to think which colours will make yhour firebirdbright and exciting. You can mix your own special blend ofcolours on the paper by using different crayons and pastelsover the top of each other. Use both the pastels and crayonsfor your picture.

Now let’s think about the first bird. This is a time for think-ing about your own ideas and getting ready to use your im-agination.

Think of your firebird being a huge creature that lives in thenight sky among the spakling stars and planets.

Think about the shape of its body. Will it be round and fat,or long and sleek, or streamlined?

What shape will its wings be? And what will its feathers looklike? Think specially about the bright colours and patternsof its feathers, and its wide wings as it swoops, glides anddrifts through the twinklking darkness.

What about its eyes? Are they going to be wide and round, ornarrow and penetrating? Will those eyes be alert or sleepy?Will they be bright and eager, or dull and tired?

Will it have a beak? Would the beak be long, sharp andpointed, or short and blunt. Would it be straight or curved?Long, or stubby?

And what are its legs and its claws or talons like as it swoopsand dives brightly through the darkness. Do its claws helpit to reach out and grab stars to stuff into its mouth?

Think about your beautifully bright and powerful fire bird.Fire birds are very patient. They wait - and then - when ashooting star appears - they zoom across the darkness -SNATCH with their talons and beak - and gobble up the fierystars, sparkles, flashes, flames and all.

You’ve been thinking hard about your own special firebirdand what it could look like. No one has every seen a realfire bird, so no one could ever say that your drawing is rightor wrong. It is entirely up to your own imagination to showwhat it could be like.

To start, make your fire bird as big as you can, so that it fillsthe paper. Once you have drawn the bird, you can add thesmaller bits and the decorations.

You will have to work quickly to do as much as you can in20 minutes.

You can start now - but remember: bright, exciting colours,and a big and beautiful firebird.

Firebird video script

Chapter 3: Making Art Works 23

Description Instructions

Approach: Level: Time:

Resources:

Key attributes (1 low – 4 high) Qualities Mean scoreyear 4 year 8

Global Rating (1 low – 6 high)

Firebird Pastel and Crayon Drawing

Independent task Year 4 & year 8 25 minutes

(each) 12 oil pastels; 12 large soft crayons; 1 sheet of B3 grey sugar paper; drawing board.

Before starting the drawing, the student watched a 3minute stimulus video recording which contained aspoken script accompanied by continuously moving,brightly coloured spirals and musical sound effects.The reader did not appear on the screen, and thespiralling colour images gave no suggestion of formthat might resemble the subject of the drawing — afirebird! The script included the following instruc-tions on the opposite page.

expressiveness image appropriate to task (bird, FIREbird, catching stars, etc.);strength, vitality, colour, movement, dynamism, imagination, avoidance of cliche.

2.2 2.6

composition appropriate use of background; giving a context;arrangement of images; balance.

2.1 2.6

detail finer features included; use of line, texture, pattern, colour blends.2.1 2.5

use of media technical control of media; exploiting a range of mark making. 2.0 2.4

2.7 3.4

42% of year 4 students’ work wasgiven ratings of 1 or 2 comparedwith 18% of year 8 students. At thehigh end, 5% of year 4 students re-ceived ratings of 5 or 6 comparedto 16% of year 8 students.

The smallest difference was in themid range, with 52% of year 4 stu-dents and 66% of year 8 studentsreceiving ratings of 3 or 4.

Apart from reminding students of the time available,the teacher administering the task did not give anyfurther instructions.

year 8

year 4

654321lowest mark Ratings highest mark

% o

f st

uden

ts

Global ratings: Firebird pastel and crayon drawing

7 30

35

15

37 37

15

29

5

15

1

Students were not penalised forincomplete drawings

24 NEMP Report 2: Art 1995

An attempt at a magical bird form, inthe sense that it is non-standard.There is a sense of heat haze aroundthe bird itself where colours havespilled out beyond the boundary ofthe bird. The bird is located in spacethrough stars and blackness. Thepastel is not particularly assured orcontrolled and colour mixing is ten-tative. Rainbow coloured stripes areused to suggest a sense of magic, butthe tail and the wing seem to separateout from the rest of the body with aconsequent loss of unity. It is asthough each part has been thought ofseparately.

A believable bird, decoratively attiredwith blue plumage-like stars out theback of its tail. The eye form and thegeneral shape of the round head tendto give it a very conventional feel andthe little chicken feet echo an Easteregg kind of chicken. The stereotypestars and moon floating in a purplesky feel equally predictable. There isno interaction between the bird andthe stars. The feet don’t feel in any-way powerful. The most careful ren-dering and blending has gone on inthe wing form, although everythinghas been somewhat halted by beingoutlined in black. This tidy drawinglacks qualities of occasion and dy-namic movement.

A very imaginative bird shape pre-sented as something of a monstercreature with spines and multiple tails,multiple spiny wings, and specialisedmouth parts. The forms fragment intoa series of parts. The background inits strongly contrasting black and yel-lows further tends to break up thedrawing with a consequent loss of thesense of integration. The one thingthat starts to link the whole body isthe use of pink all over. This con-necting colour starts to make the pic-ture look like one bird. This firebird isalmost incoherent except as a flat de-sign. It does carve up the drawingspace into an interesting series ofshapes, but it is so carved up that asense of order is lost.

Firebird exemplars mid range

Chapter 3: Making Art Works 25

A rather symmetrical quiet bird, witheach part of the body decoratively di-vided into a separate colour bands.There is a sense of solid control inthe use of pastel media. While theimage may suggest something ofpower it is not so well developed interms of its expressiveness andmovement. There is no attempt atcolour blending, and the compositionhas very limited central organisation.

Firebird exemplars

A tentative use of pastel, with noreal pressure applied to give solidrichness to the colour. Decorativedevices of zigzags, spirals and twirlshave been used to fill in the form.It is essentially a rendering of a birdthat is somewhat magical butdoesn’t give the feeling of poweror a sense of movement or con-text. Rather, the opportunity hasbeen used to explore decorativespace filling within a simple birdform.

This is reminiscent of a number ofworks with its strong symmetrical, al-most “gang-patch” symbolism. It is anaerial view looking down. The tripleoutlining around the outside draws ourattention to the edges of the bird butleaves the middle feeling empty andweakened. There is an attempt to de-fine different parts of the body with dif-ferent textures, and although there arevery powerful wing forms that almostlook reptilian, the bird is considerablymuch weakened when we come to theshape of the head and the overall bodyform. It impresses as something akinto a passive, soft flower rather thansome kind of devouring Venus flytrap.So although we have an exciting senseof energy at the edges, this dissipatesas we look to into the centre. Thewhole thing is arranged symmetrically,but this symmetry doesn’t render asense of dynamism.

26 NEMP Report 2: Art 1995

Firebird exemplars lower range

Chapter 3: Making Art Works 27

high range Firebird exemplars