In June the Prep children embarked on their first official excursion for the year, and it was worth the wait. Visiting the Tamworth Regional Art Gallery and viewing last year’s Archibald entries and winner. Prestigious and often controversial, the Archibald Prize is Australia’s foremost portraiture prize. Prior to the excursion, we had been discussing with the children what art is. Prep had a curious question discussion around this. “What is Art”. Most of the ideas from the children were it’s a drawing or a painting. Some children were very descriptive; it has rainbows, flowers, colours. To extend we look at some of the famous artists from history as well as current. From this, the children discovered that art can be a photograph, a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, it can be imagined, or from real life, it can tell a story, have meaning and most importantly that everyone sees art differently. Looking at the Mona Lisa we had curious questions “who is she”, “she is looking at me”. The looking at works by Kandinsky “it has rainbows”, “that makes me happy”. Without realising the children began to discuss how they were feeling when they looked at different artists’ works. A large spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois brought a collective “that’s a big spider, I’m scared”. A favourite was Van Gough’s Sunflowers and his Starry Night. The bright colours in Andy Warhols works provided the opportunity for a ‘what’s different’ game, and Nam June Paik’s robots prompted so many questions from some of the boys. “Do they work”, “How do they work”, “Is that really art, it’s a robot”.

While visiting the Gallery the children were detectives and were given smaller versions of some of the art on display to find. They did so well and listened intently to Emma, our Gallery guide. When Emma mentioned the prize for the winner there was a collective gasp followed by “that’s a big number Miss Kell”. Once the children entered the studio to work on their own portraits, Emma discussed shapes and symmetry with the children and they were able to choose to complete a portrait of someone else, or a self-portrait. The children were excited, using pencils, charcoal, and pastels. Many of the children looked in the mirrors provided and created a face shape with the information that Emma provided, and each created a unique masterpiece. Art is individual and links with many of the focuses Prep has engaged with this year.

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