The idea of having an Arts Council is for the members to choose an art topic to discuss.

There were 19 people at our first meeting in September!

We looked at examples of portraits by several different artists. We had to try to work out which ones we thought were self-portraits (what clues were there? Could we be sure?) …and which were painted by the same artist. To members' surprise six were by Picasso. We found that, during his long life, the Spanish artist developed many ways of painting. One was very quick - it seemed to have been painted in about ten minutes. There were two drawn portraits that looked much more detailed than the oil paintings.

Our second meeting involved the whole class. Everyone had just finished painting, so they knew what they were talking about! We talked some more about portraits and the many ways an artist can reveal that the models look like, and some of their character or personality. Some of the artists' choices of colour (for example, a moody dark blue, or golden yellow) helps to create a certain mood.

Next meeting: the topic is chosen by Amena and is ABSTRACT painting

On 12th February Class 7 discussed three of the ideas that had been suggested at the previous meeting. Two of these were about abstract art and one asked, 'What does 'capture the emotions' mean?' We tried to deal with these questions together as we looked at three paintings by the Russian artist Kandinsky, two by the Dutch painter Mondrian, and three by the American Rothko.

Eliza was our scribe. She noted that Kandinsky's paintings all showed the city of Moscow during the Russian revolution, one painted from a high building, looking down. They had vibrant colours, were full of excitement and the last one was nearly abstract (the shapes were similar and with fewer details). Then we saw how Mondrian did a fairly realistic painting of a tree, then another of the same tree that was bolder and more abstract. Rothko - a highly emotional man - made abstract paintings, one called 'Four Darks in Deep Red' which seemed to express his sad feelings, or emotions.

​As usual, we had to much to say in only 20 minutes! But we will find out more in the next meeting in March.

Class 2 had an amazing time at the Museum of London today exploring interesting facts about the Romans.

Class 7 met for their first Arts Council Meeting.

There were suggestions for ideas to be discussed. These were:

• Why do we do art in schools? Eliza
• How do artists work in an abstract way? Mariya
• What is the process of making an artwork, especially an abstract one? Sania
• What does, 'capture the emotions' mean? Rabbi
• Why do people like to make art? Iqra
• How do artists do perfect shading? Hafiza
• How do people learn to make art? Farzana

At our next meeting we will have a scribe and probably get into small groups to discuss some of the topics. We will look at some examples to help us. We are so impressed with  the thoughtful quality of these interesting questions, and look forward to hearing everyone's opinions!

With Riyadh as the scribe, Class 8 had their second meeting. Aleeza's choice of subject to discuss was the abstract painting of an Australian child artist, Aelita Andre. Aelita is 12 years old; her paintings are large and abstract (they do not represent anything in a recognisable way).

Riyadh wrote down many of the points the group made when we looked at the paintings:

• old and young people can paint
• there is lots of colour in these paintings - orange, red, blue- and she has used a lot of paint, layers on top of layers. It is thrown and spread about over the canvas.
• Has she seen the work of the famous American painter Jackson Pollock? His work is called 'Action Painting'. He paints walking about and moves his arms with wide sweeps.
• Aelita puts real shoes (hers?) in many of her paintings. They are side by side, looking as though she has just stepped out of them. Why?

Some adjectives to describe her work are:

• painterly, energetic, lively, magnificent, extreme

Sadly we did not have time to look at Umair's choice, which was Picasso's Cubist painting. We hope to get together again in the Spring term for this and a few ideas people from Class 8 have had!