Taonga Time With Mrs Tele'a

“ This is going to be fun” I was talking to Brooklyn on the way to Taonga time with Mrs Tele’a. Every Friday afternoon we go to Taonga Time to learn about different things for 5 weeks. In some of the classes people were taking, they were going to paint the picnic tables in the street, movie making, sports and some other things. I'm with Mrs Tele’a making movies. Last week we were learning how to use time lapse for our projects.


When using time lapse, one by one you draw the lines and copy them onto different cards. You keep doing this until you have drawn the whole picture. Then you put it all into a movie. In the end it shows the process of your picture and how you have used the texture.

For our project we had to trace a famous painting by Robyn Kahukiwa. She was born in Australia but moved to New Zealand when she was 19 years old. She was a self taught painter and started painting in 1967 living with her family in Greymouth.

I chose to draw the wonderful painting Upoko Whero by Robyn Kahukiwa.  I thought it was going to be very easy to draw it but I was wrong. The object of the painting was the simple part until I got up to the shading. It was hard to find the right texture on the computer to fit the painting. So I just used the oil paint tool to show the texture.

This week when we go to Taonga Time I want to get straight into my drawing and finishing it off properly.

Tamaki Tech

The first thing I noticed when I walked through the doors was the smell. It was a metallic smell as well a scent of wood. We were at Tamaki College for tech. There was Food tech, Hard materials and Electronics. We take these classes to get us ready for college.

In hard materials, six tables were set up for us. Mr Grundy greeted us at the door and told us to sit down. He handed us little books and asked if we all had a pencil. In the book there were faint lines of what Mr Grundy called a housing joint. A plank of wood. You cut the end off and chisel out cut in the rest of the wood. It was drawn in different ways to show how we could use the joint.

Mr Grundy showed us some of the things the students last term made. There were space ships, trucks, a helicopter and much more. He said that we need to decide what we are going to start making next week. I was drawing some things that I could make, but it didn’t look too good. So I decided to choose between the two best drawings, a hover car, or a box. I hover car is what I want to do in the next couple of weeks.

It was nearly time to leave when a group of students from food tech came and knocked on the door. Names were being called out, one by one. Everyone had their own. They all looked so cool. That made me think a lot about how my car is.

I am looking forward to making my hover car and learning new skills in hard materials.

Comparing and Contrast Part 2.

Yet again we have been asked to compare and contrast two different paintings. ‘The Weeping Woman’ by Pablo Picasso and ‘ A lazy day in paradise’ by Daniella Hulme. Picasso used Cubism as his style of technique and Daniella has a modern style of art.

‘ The Weeping Woman’ is one of the many paintings that Picasso had created. He has an odd sense of style. He uses Cubism and looks at different perspectives. The painting is made up of different colours and shapes. He used a dull yellow through most of his painting. He also uses other colours like green and oranges.

If I look at ‘ A lazy day in paradise’ I notice that it is of a lady in a tropical place. Daniella paints island pictures because she was inspired by her husbands culture, Samoa. She uses oil paints as a style of art. Bright vibrant colours are used to set the scene. A lady is lying on the couch fanning herself. When I looked at other paintings she has also painted wome. All of them had the same face.

The too paintings don’t have very much in common. ‘ A lazy day in paradise’ has very bright, bold colours and is very relaxed. ‘ The weeping woman’ uses dull colours and has a sad vibe .

‘The weeping woman’  and ‘ A lazy day in paradise’ are two very different paintings and although there are many differences between them, they are still unique and beautiful in their own ways.

Compare and Contrast.

‘Sunflowers’ by Van Gogh and ‘La musique’ by Henri Matisse. These two paintings are what we have been asked to compare and contrast for our writing in class. Van Gogh's style of art is Expressionism and Henri Matisses style of art is Fauvism.

Vincent Van Gogh uses the technique of little vertical strokes throughout his entire painting of ‘Sunflowers’. The shading in the flowers made it look realistic but it wasn't a very joyful painting. The flowers were drooping and painted in dark colours. Yellow and brown were the colours that were mainly used.  The petals have fallen off some the flowers as well.  It showed that he was probably sad at the time when he painted it.

‘La Musique’ is one painting that you can enjoy. It’s bright right through most of the painting. Fauvism is the technique that he used. Fauve means ‘wild beast’ in French. The painting looks very happy and joyful. It looks like the two women are having a great time playing the guitar.  The colours are bright and bold. He used red, green, yellow and blue.


If I compare and contrast the two paintings, I can see there is not much resemblance between them. The only things the paintings had in common was that the colour yellow was used and both had plants in them. La Musique is a happy painting with women and bright colours in it. Sunflowers has dull colours and it looks more realistic than La Musique.


In conclusion, I think that Van Gogh and Henri Matisse are different in their own way and that they both enjoyed painting when they were alive.

Art Alive Immersion Week.

Since Art Alive is our topic for this term, we had an immersion week. We switched classes and learnt about different artists. Every artist had a different style of ways to paint. We had to go to the art lessons straight after morning tea.

Our first class was with Mrs Nua in room 22 on Tuesday. Vincent Van Gogh was the fabulous artist we were studying. His life was dreary especially towards the end. One of the reasons why he was so miserable was he sent his ear lobe to his girlfriend but she didn’t like it. Also, when he was painting he only sold one piece of art in his whole life. His sister in law was the one that made his paintings worthwhile because she really put his artwork out there, and eventually his artwork became famous and valuable. You could see some of his emotions in his paintings. He used vertical strokes throughout the whole painting. Mrs Nua showed us a painting of sunflowers that he did. Then she zoomed in on one particular flower. We had to show her that we could do this technique by copying the flower and creating something similar.  

  In room 18  Mr Barks talked about Picasso.  Picasso never just drew a face from the front perspective but he drew from the side, the middle and sometimes he would stand over his subject and sketch from the top. The background of his painting looked like shattered glass painted in dark colours. For our Picasso picture, we had to draw a face but half was from the side view and the other half was from the front view. My picture looked a bit weird because  the ears were in a different place. I’m not used to drawing like this. In the end my picture looked a bit weird but I think that Picasso would like it.

  On Friday Mr Slade was talking about Claude Monet. He was one of the founders of French impressionist painting. Mr Slade showed us some pictures and the technique that he used. Throughout his painting he used little vertical strokes to display his art. We could paint anything as long as we used his technique. I drew a mountain that had a little stream running down it. It had a little pond in the corner as well. I think that his paintings and technique are very original.

This week on Monday we went to our last class. We were learning about Daniella Hulmes with Ms Squires. She was born in Elsloo, in the province of Limburg, Holland. She came to New Zealand and married a Samoan man. Thats why she painted pacific paintings and used bright and vibrant colours. One thing I noticed was that all of the girls had the same face and hair. Ms Squires did a close up on a fruit bowl. The grapes had a 3D effect because she shaded the grapes in as well as the seeds of the paw paw fruit. It was truly exquisite. However, mine didn’t look that great.

  I had a great time with all of the teachers during the Art Alive Immersion Week and I hope we get some time to finish off our paintings.