Tuesday 6th October - MailArt cards

What a fantastic art-making session we had on 6th October

Our Art Club sessions always begin with a few deep breaths to relax, we meet at the end of the day and it's important to rest briefly between School and Art Club.

Following on from last week's Giant Egg focus we have continued to look at the animals and birds of Madagascar and the impact man is having on them, we have combined this with our term-theme of 'flights of fancy' and tied both these themes in to our project with Cupertino Middle School which is in Sunnyvale California.


My involvement with a Worldwide twitter art project called Mail Art has led to an inter-school collaboration with Sylivia Griffin the art teacher at Cupertino. Mail Art is a collective project where a list of artists create pieces of art on postcards, the art is then mailed - without an envelope, one card to each person on the list. Part of the idea is to see what extra marks the cards pick up in transit.

The results of Mailart projects are stunning and the aim is that when each artist has a full set, they exhibit them at their next show - good exposure for every one of the artists. The current round of MailArt has a theme of 'Being human in time', cards can be seen at The Mail Art Flickr Group

Below is one of the cards I drew and sent:

I shall be showing all the results when I exhibit my work at Bear Steps gallery in Shrewsbury in January 2010.

Our school MailArt has seen us each making postcards to send. Sylvia and I exchanged their list of children's names and the school addresses last week, giving only the initials of the children's last names.

We started the session by looking at the progress on the The Giant Egg website - lots more images had been uploaded since last week, the children were very excited by @tomavana's Fire Egg, @fiddlehead Lee Tracy and by @RyanSeslow's work, (names preceded by an @ sign are Twitter names).

We talked about the excitement of sending postcards to another school in another part of the World, how these children would send us cards too. We looked at a map of the World highlighting Sundorne, UK and Sunnyvale, USA and asked questions about where Madagascar was in relation to both schools and what journies our cards would make by plane and other transport.

Then we had another look at the information sheets I had produced about birds, animals and environments and at some more work by Wassily Kandinsky with the children relating his brush-strokes to 'flight' and talking about what they could see within his abstract works.

After our talk the children set to work making their own MailArt cards. With our 'inspiration sheets' on the tables, some music playing and much ongoing discussion, we worked with drawing and collage, with card, pen, tissue, glue, pencil and then had a 2 minute glitterfest at the end!

The results are sensational and I have since varnished the cards and addressed them, in our session on 13th October each child will stick on their stamps and write a small message then off the cards will go, all the way to Sunnyvale, USA.

One of the cards, produced by Ashton, is shown below -


Our cards can be seen on our Flickr page

When we receive our cards from the USA we will post a link to them here.

In our next session we will be continuing with our term-themes and painting four big abstracts on canvases to hang in the school corridor.

Art Club 29 September 2009 - Giant Egg

Today we talked about Tim Grosvenor's Giant Egg project see Here Artists of all disciplines come together to raise awareness about Madagascar The Giant Egg Event Tim uses the Twitter name @elephant bird because this is a symbol of the changes happening in Madagascar - the Elephant bird is now extinct. The Elephant Bird is shown below:



I showed the children pictures of Madagascar and explained about the problems facing the animals and people there, we discussed how we would feel if our environment was being chopped down and how it would be good to contribute to the Giant Egg project to help people to be aware of the issues in Madagascar. We used the resource sheet I had created (sheet below)


We looked at and talked about some images from artists which relate to 'flights of fancy' their current topic including Kandinsky's Fixed Flight and Sky Study with Birds by Jean-Michel Cels. Then I read to them the poem below by Micalanne, I chose this because I thought the children would relate to it well.

Where do they lay to dream? 

By Micalanne poet and artist

When the forests have burned, 

and the creatures are extinct,

what will be left to inspire?

Who will care for the remaining

fragile fragments of dreams

when they must be set aside

and attentions are turned to survival?

Laying on the sweet green grass,

filled with yesterday and today,

I am unhindered to dream of tomorrow.

My dreams are never set aside.

I exist in them

with every rising of the sun. 

I would give that to the

Malagasy.

After looking at a sheet of information which I had produced, then at the posterous website and at the Giant Egg Event site, the drawings were made by the children who are aged 5 and 6. I have added one drawing here and more can be seen in this Flickr group

Visit from the Dept for Schools Children and Families

On 16th September we were pleased that five visitors from the Dept for Schools Children and Families came to look around our school, they were very interested in all aspects of the school arts policy and how it relates to the SEAL project and the promotion of good mental health in schools.

Time was spent looking at the Mosaic garden created by the children with Mosaic artist Liz Turner and at the murals created with Artist Carla Boulton shown on this site.

Our children are knowledgeable and interested in the arts and really enthused about showing the visitors the murals and talking through their work.

Large wall pic

Click this pic to see larger image

Painting on a large wall...

This is the Monet image we have used as inspiration for the large image

One wall almost complete

Except for deciding whether we will frame the 5 murals these are finished and the images can be seen below.



The next part of the project is the opposite wall which I have been asked to work on with a group of parents, we will create one large mural across the wall to continue the theme of peace and along the lines of a Monet image. A challenge!

2nd,3rd,4th,5th June

Session details:
Morning sessions between 9.10 and 12.00
Afternoon sessions 1.10 - 2.50pm

One workshop Tuesday morning
Two workshops on Wednesday one Am and one Pm
Workshop on Thursday PM
Workshop Friday PM

Between 23 and 25 children in each session

Session Structures:
3 minute introduction by class teacher
Talk about good behaviour and listening about how this is an exciting piece of work we will al lmake together

15 minutes by Carla Boulton:
Introducing myself, my name and that I live nearby
Ask the question does anyone know what I do?
What I do as an artist, that I paint and draw and make things, how I look at things
That I feel lucky to love my job
Ask about the artist (Claude Monet) that he children have been studying, do they like his work
Talk about Monet's use of three colours plus white - show children four paint tubes
Show children my brushes and sketchbook
Show some of Monet's paintings, look at how amazingit is that he achieved so many different colours
Talk about Monet's work and the sizes
Talk about his garden at Giverny the beauty we see around us
Talk about my work
Show some of my paintings on the Monet theme, show them a painting I have done which is not of a garden which still uses only the three colours. This is the unfinished 2nd portrait of Isabella which has about 2 weeks more work left to do.
Show the children the process of laying on the different colours one at a time and using stage photos of my work.
Talk about collaboration and consideration and that we will all be working to make one piece of work which we will all be proud of

Go through rules:
Have a drink before going outside
Keep paint on the wall not in hair etc
Wear old shirts and bags on shoes
Respect for other people's work
Ask for show of hands from those who do not want to stick to the rules
Make it clear that anyone who cannot be sensible will have to come in
Wash hands when come back in

Groups
Conversation before intro session with class teacher about any special needs or any children who will require the assistance of a TA
Children split into groups of either three or four by teacher

Work
Children outside in small group.
Put on old shirts and bags on shoes
Spends few minutes looking at the work we are basing out mural on
Look at the colours, where the light and dark parts are in the painting
Look at which colour we think we will put on first and how we will build it up
Show how to carefully dip their brushes into the pain and how to wipe of the excess paint.
Show how to gently use brushstrokes which will still allow the base colour to show through. Explain that we don't want to cover this up completely as it give light to the picture.
Spend ten minutes blocking in the colour where needed.
Ask children to stand back after 5 mins and see what they have done and how it relates to the work we are using as inspiration.
5 more mins painting then stand back and look at work

The work in progress (below)


The work near completion (below)


Recording
Notes throughout
Feedback forms from children
Gather children's comments throughout work
Photographs of stages by each class