Starry skies

by sharonkelly Posted on April 7, 2017

We all did some homework before number 11 session – which was to make sure and observe the NIGHT SKY. It just happened to be a clear night but if you were looking up to the night sky in Crossmaglen, you’d have seen a lot more visible stars than I did looking from my rooflight in the heart of Belfast City… I showed the children what I saw. I documented the view North and South from my windows, by taking photographs.

 

I looked out and saw lots and lots of lights, but they were from houses, buildings and streetlights…
This was looking out southwards, on the left side you can make out the spire from Queens University and if you look hard into the sky just over this you might make out a pale light… a star!
This is looking northward and over towards Cavehill… all I could see was city lights!

I asked the children what they saw and  they had indeed seen more starts than me!

We discussed the reason for this and they suggested that all the city lights had drowned the night stars out.  The children told me what stars they saw some saw 5 large stars spread out, very bright…

I invited them to make a charcoal drawing based on their night visions. Here are some, but you can see more on the Teacher section of the journal…

      

     

What lovely images! We were in the mood for some hands on working with art materials and decided to try the effects of wax resist….

We tried a mix of blue and black acrylic paint to make the night sky…

 

We used a candle to make marks and lines so that when we gave the paper a wash of bluey black paint, these marks resisted the paint.
I had sent the class some water soluble wax crayons which are lovely to use with a wet brush… look at the lovely effects…
Red and yellow water-soluble wax crayons after a wet brush has ‘loosened’ the marks…

 

Mrs Hughes has posted a lot of the children’s pictures on the Teacher Journal, go check them out…

The children’ s work had reminded me of the beautiful painting by Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night’ painted in 1889 in the South of France.

We all talked about this painting the children loved the swirly patterns, the glowing yellow around the moon. We noticed some paler lights from the town below but the night sky was  so big and beautiful. The children liked the big silhouetted tree in the foreground and thought that maybe it was a stormy night when Vincent painted this scene.

We have cultivated a real interest in the space and the stars and are planning a trip to a local PLANETARIUM!

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