Year 3/4: Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa
The topic for Year 3/4 this half-term is ‘Extreme Earth’. In art, we are looking at the work of Katsushika Hokusai and, in particular, studying The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
The children have learned about Hokusai’s life and the technique of woodblock printing. We compared this picture with others in the set 36 views of Mt. Fuji and considered its place within the tradition of Japanese wave painting more generally. We analysed the use of colour and line before creating our own work inspired by Hokusai.
We have been working on the use of our sketchbooks to record, review and develop our ideas. Some of the children had found the initial drawing challenging so we spent part of the second lesson analysing the difficulties, looking more closely at the original print and discussing approaches that might improve our versions. When the children made their final line drawing, their work showed evidence of their learning and careful observation.
Next week, we will add colour!