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HEIDI WINDEISEN: Hi, everyone. My name's Heidi Windeisen, and I'm the Operation Art Project Officer here at The Arts Unit. Today I'm going to take you through the steps to complete an artwork called 'The King Sun.'

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This is based on a work by John Olsen.

The first thing you're going to need to create this artwork is a plain piece of white paper, a large brush, and some blue food colouring. OK, so all you need to do is take your blue food colouring and cover your paper.

I want you to pause the video now and go and try step 1.

How did you go with your background? Once it's completely dry, you can start to create your sun. I've started this one already, but I'm going to show you what you need.

You need your blue background, some yellow food colouring, some red food colouring, a straw, and a spoon. Now I'll show you how I've started to create this one. We drop the food colouring in the middle with our spoon, and then we take the straw, and we blow.

Now, you want to blow out from the centre so it looks like the sun's rays are radiating out from the middle.

Now, keep adding the colour until you're happy with the size of your sun. And when you're ready, can leave that section to dry as well. I want you to pause the video now and have a turn.

Did you make sure that your sun was big enough to cover up a lot of your page?

What we're going to do now is add some oil pastels or some crayons. I want you to think about how the sun radiates the heat down towards the Earth. Think about the patterns that you might draw to represent that, and think about the colours that remind you of the sun.

So I've got my oil pastels here, as I said before, you can use crayons if you don't have oil pastels. And I kind of like to think that the colours start in a swirl, and send the light all the way down to the Earth, like this. Add as many colours as you like-- those colours that are reminding you of the sun and the rays that it sends down towards the Earth.

I'm going to keep working on mine. I want you to pause the video and have a go at yours.

How are you going with the oil pastels? I want you to have a look and make sure that you've added enough colour and enough line that follows the shape of your sun. Have a check. If you feel like you need some more, add some more detail.

Once you're happy with your sun, it's time to add some acrylic paint. So you're going to need some black paint, some white paint, some yellow paint, and some red paint, and some pieces of string-- one for each colour. Now, this bit is a little bit messy, so make sure your table is covered and that you've got something to protect your clothing.

Alright, so you take your string and you dip it into your paint. Your fingers will get a little bit messy here, but that's kind of fun as well. Take it on, and then drop your string onto your painting, seeing if you can make some interesting patterns with your string as it falls.

Again, think about those rays of light radiating out from the centre of the sun down towards the Earth. Once I feel like I've added enough red, then I can leave that piece of string in my red paint and move on to the yellow. So I'll grab the next piece of string. It's nice and clean. If you use the same piece of string again, you're going to mix your colours. So that's why I'm taking a clean piece of string for each colour.

Alright, once I feel like I've finished with the yellow, I move on to the next colour, and I'm going to do some black this time. OK and last but not least, we have our white paint. So grab your last piece of string, nice and clean, pop it into your paint. OK, I'm happy with mine now, so I'm going to stop adding that paint at the moment. I want you to pause the video and go and have a try yourself.

Once you're done adding your pieces of string with paint onto your work, it's time to keep your acrylic paint, because we're going to add some dots. Now, the reason we add dots to this work is because the broken line is just adding a little bit more interest than those solid lines that we have on the paper already. So you can use a cotton tip for this, and any of those colours that you have there, and I just like to follow along the lines that we've already created. Changing colours when you're ready. It's OK if they mix up a little bit. You can see which different colours you can make. I'm going to keep working on mine. I want you to pause the video and have a turn yourself.

OK, I feel like I've finished now. How about you? We'd love to see what you've created. If you'd like to take a snapshot and send us a picture at our email address, have a look below, and you'll know where to send them. Thanks so much for joining me.