Our weekly Art Hoppers art sessions are delivered by local artist Claire Ward-Thornton throughout the year. Here’s a summary of what we got up to this week:

Matisse ‘The Snail’

We began as we always do, on the carpet, observing the work of an artist, an object or source material for inspiration. This week we looked at ‘The Snail’ by Henri Matisse, a large work composed of gouache painted paper, cut and arrange on a background. The children could detect different shapes, correctly naming a rectangle, triangle and square. They were asked to air draw the pattern a snail shell makes. ‘A circle’ was called out. We talked about the spiral effect. At the tables, children arranged pre-cut shapes of coloured paper onto card considering the spiral. We then regrouped and many children shared their results talking about snails and their homes, where the door is into the shell, what’s inside and many more ideas.