Ocean Grove Primary School has been involved in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Local Landscapes/Literacy Project since its inception in 2007.
Only a handful of schools take part each year, and this is the 10th and possibly last year that it will be running.
OGPS chose 20 Year 6 students to showcase their work. Students submitted an expression of interest based on their passion for art and their willingness to put in hours of their own time as well as art class time.
The quality of work was outstanding and choosing the 20 students was no mean task, so much so that art teacher Robyn Jones decided to draw the names of the winners from a hat.
“In the past, we have visited NGV Australia in Federation Square to study the works of famous Australian landscape artists. Students have then taken photographs of a place special to them and have come back to school to paint their chosen scene,” Robyn said.
“This year, however, because there is a Vincent Van Gogh exhibition at NGV International (St Kilda Road), we went to the exhibition and students have been trying to emulate Van Gogh’s style in their own artworks.”
The program is highly intensive, and students are taught some of the higher intricacies of painting, which is often not possible in normal art sessions with whole groups of students. They get to use artist-quality paints on a canvas board.
Some of the things they are taught are: how to create the illusion of distance; how to use brush strokes effectively; how to use and apply colour; how to really ‘see’ what they are painting rather than just painting from memory.
In the past students have written a text panel to accompany their paintings at the exhibition; this year they have all written a letter to someone special, explaining their thoughts and aspirations for their painting as Van Gogh did when writing to his brother Theo.
The project culminated in an exhibition in a studio at NGV International on 2 July.
