Donaghey P.S. | Artist Journal

This week we worked with blank white masks. The children found the mask that they had made last week and wee compared the cardboard mask that the children had made the previous week with a white plastic mask. With eyes closed they felt different, one was smoother than the other, one had elastic. The children had a white mask and tried them on. Mrs Wilson was scared: they all looked the same. Many of the children thought that they would be able to recognise their white mask within a group so we played a finding game. Once they were in a group, finding the white mask wasn’t as easy as it had seemed to be. How we could make them more like us? The children suggested that we could paint on them, write on them, add hair, add eyebrows. All good ideas. I suggested that we started off by cutting into the mask to give it a different shape. This was a real challenge but the children were very good at cutting. Some people were a bit worried about how much to cut -maybe the manufactured mask seemed too precious to take risks… Very exciting work. The children are taking photos as they go and I will get to see them at some point. I will have to be patient!

 

First session with P1 and P2: the children are working in an unfamiliar room with bigger chairs and tables and they haven’t met me or learned to use the whiteboard so we are took it very gently and spent time on introductions. We are tying in with the curricular topic “All about me”. The children used the i-pad and we found the camera button -some of them knew how to use it already. They learned to put the i-pad into selfie mode and normal mode and took pictures of themselves and each other. They used their experiments to help them to make simple masks from cardboard and cut out eyes and mouth. Some of them decided to cut out the nose so their own nose could poke through the cardboard. I was working away at my own mask and stepped aside for a moment to get something. Almost immediately I could hear one of the P1’s shouting, “Where did she go?” -I had been missed straight away. The children worked away steadily and all of a sudden the class started to present themselves at the camera for me to see their work. I didn’t know everyone’s names and I couldn’t recognise who it was behind the masks, just these fantastic characters appearing. It was quite an experience. I saw that some of the children were using the i-pads during the session for spontaneous documentation of the process. The P1’s and P2’s are naturals at all of this. So. Much. Fun.

There are rich and exciting layers of paintings and drawings building up in the dream jars. We will be working with the P3 and P4 again later in the term and they will be continuing to read the BFG in between but in the meantime we are going to try something new. This year, as well as taking P3 and P4 for part of the week, Mrs Wilson is also working with P1 and P2 and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with the youngest children in the school. There is a big class and work will need to be quite open, as we don’t know how the children will respond to the virtual set-up but it is a tantalising prospect.

 

This week we are going to look at how we can add watercolour and different layers of drawing and paint to create different effects. Self-portraiture is inspired by Quentin Blake’s beautiful style once again but we have also been looking at John Berger’s interpretation of a Willem Drost portrait and some fluid Lucien Freud studies that don’t have sharp outlines. First thing was to make lots of base layers so that we could then add other layers on top. Some of these were created using pencil outlines, some with paint and no outlines. The children completed some of their portraits while the page was still wet and left others to dry. Simple tips like replenishing the clean water for brush-washing and using different sizes of brush make so much difference to the clarity of the work. After break the children added to these base layers in different ways -here are some examples:

 

Add more layers of wet, flowing paint

 

Add more layers of dryer, less flowing paint

 

Add pen to dry painting, creating line and texture. No water.

 

Add pen to dry painting, creating line and texture. Add water

We used the photographic portraits that the children produced and as the session progressed the children thought about what family members they might resemble. From the glimpses of work that I have seen, the children’s work from this session is really special. Today is all about exploring the versatility of these creative materials and to give the children choices about how they use them. They have experienced so many options in one session. I hope that they can see the value of developing their own style of painting and drawing -that everyone’s work can be unique. The children have been very willing are fully engaged with every session. Can’t believe we have to pause for Christmas already.

This is undoubtably the strangest moment: sitting waiting for the children to arrive. It is so quiet and calm here. I have no visual communication with the classroom and there is no sound either. It’s just me and the computer and my notes, my materials… Occasionally the preview screen catches my eye when I check for movement on the other end.

Any moment now, they will arrive into the room, sound and video will be switched on, and we’ll be in the middle of it.

I wonder if they realise how strange it is to be suddenly connected and pulled into their world? It really is a unique experience.

Today started with a conversation about the BFG what kind of character he was. The children told me a bit about his work with dreams and that he was kind and helpful. I heard some feedback from the parents and relatives visit: one child was brought to Mc Donald’s after school for a treat because the work was so impressive.

We made an extra-detailed plan for today because our connection has been a bit flaky. This meant that if we got cut off the children and Mrs Wilson would be able to carry on regardless. The session started by laying out the work from last week and everyone walked around and looked at everyone else’s work. The each person took a sticky label and they used it to leave a comment for one of their classmates telling them something they noticed that was interesting or successful about that work. Then the children went back to their work and read what their classmates had written. We shared some of the comments and then the children had a good look at the artwork and decided if they agreed or disagreed with the comments. We thought about what we might do differently if we were going to do similar work again. This was a really useful time -I think that the children saw so much in each other’s work and got a lot of ideas from the subsequent discussion. It will be interesting to see if there is an effect on work because of it.

There were going to be a lot of experiments so we labelled the pages first. We played a lot with the water part of watercolour, seeing the effect of adding more water and less paint, less water and more paint and various combinations and permutations. Before the practical part, each experiment was described and the children made predictions about what they thought that the paint might do on the page.

Here are the experiments that we undertook:

Experiment 1: Dry page, dry brush no water Try to use paint.

Dry page, slightly wet brush, spread paint on page, set brush down, tilt page.

Does anything happen to the paint?

Can you see through it?

Experiment 2: Dry page, wet paint,

Add drops of paint to page, lift page and tilt with hands to move the paint.

Experiment 3: Dry page, wet paint,

Add drops of paint to page, use brush to move the paint.

Experiment 4: Wet page, wet paint,

Add drops of paint to page, lift page and tilt with hands to move the paint.

Experiment 5: Wet page, wet paint,

Add drops of paint to page, use brush to move the paint.

 

Descriptions from some of the children about how the paint moved on the page:

like a volcano

like lava

like a river

dropping like rain

like a hedgehog putting out spikes

growing in the wind

explosion

like fireworks

 

 

Although there was plenty of structure within the session it was clear to the children that there was no right or wrong outcome, just lots of experimentation. We could hear exclamations of ‘ooh’, ‘wow’ and ‘whoah’ as the children saw the variations. It is so exciting when possibilities like these unlock in front of our eyes: combinations of design and chance, accident and choice.

More photos of relatives from children -one was taken in Germany. We looked for likenesses again and talked about the ideas of changing over time. Lovely images.

We started off by thinking about last week’s session and looking at some of the words that the children had come up with -some very funny conglomerations. The made-up words took our attention back to The BFG and we talked about the dream jars. I showed that children some Turner watercolour studies. The way that the dreams are described in the book reminds me of how pigment moves through watercolour paint. The children played with watercolour and water to see if they could create similar effects. This was a great way of loosening up.

This week the children have brought in special guests to watch the session and, inevitably to be roped into the experience. There were lots of rather nervous relatives being shown the ropes by the P3’s and P4’s. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss so the children made drawings of the adults in the room. Unusually, the class promised not to look too closely in case they found wrinkles! Some of the drawings from last week were very small so we thought about filling the page this time. The children showed their drawings to their subjects. One adult said the experience of being drawn was terrifying. The children thought this was very funny. Coming back to the idea of dreams and aspirations, we asked the visitors to remember back to the age of 7 or 8 and think about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Some of them shared their childhood dreams with the group.

I wanted to be…

a nurse

a footballer

a beautician

a mummy

a ballet dancer

a vet

a stuntman

When the mums, dads, grannies and grandas went home, for the last part of the session we talked about how people changed over time and I showed them some photos from when I was wee.

The children said that they liked drawing self-portraits as well so they suggested that printed out photos would allow the children to see themselves. Some work was needed on sources of light but the results were really strong and will be ready to use next week.

The children showed some of their work to me -I can see their confidence grow. This week, more children brought photos of family members to share with me, and with the rest of the class, and we talked about family likenesses. Lots of interesting ideas are developing between us.

This week we thought about how we identify ourselves and others, looking at eyes in particular. The children worked with partners to see if they had been paying attention to the colour of each other’s eyes. We worked with watercolour using even more water than last week to create the watery colours within the iris. We were inpired by the watery colours in Quentin Blake’s album cover for the singer James Blake.

The children thought that they would like to work on their own eyes and portraits but that it was hard to draw ourselves because we couldn’t see details without a mirror. Some suggested taking photos using ipads, phones, cameras or computers so we could do more work on ourselves. I showed the children photos of me during primary school and they figured out that the eyes didn’t change colour. We discussed how we might change as we get older and I asked the children to find family photos that showed relatives such as parents, siblings and grandparents when they were 6, 7 or 8 years old. The children made up Roald Dahl-style words to describe themselves and will upload the results.

Some things we learned:

Simple things take time for younger children and labelling is one of them. I think that it’s worth it -labelled work tells a story of development over time and adds value to the experience. It also tells the children that what they are doing is not a throwaway activity.

When working with other people it was hard to keep eye contact for long -the children found that quite challenging.

I need time to look at the children’s work with them and talk about it so we will do that next time.

The children are coming into the class more confidently for the session -great sign.

Meeting the children for the new phase is exciting. It was great to see Aimee H again. She was able to show the webcam to the younger children from P3 and P4. I recognised some faces from recording children’s voices for the Every Voice in the School piece and some people had come in for portrait sessions last year. They have grown up a lot in between.

Before the first session, I had sent a letter and an 8-page fold booklet to the children to introduce some of the ideas and themes for this phase. They fed back some ideas about the booklet. Some of  them had figured out who the letter was from. I had used some Roald Dahl words like “human beans” in the letter and they caught the link to the book that they were reading as a class: The BFG. We looked at Quentin Blake drawings and experimented with drawing and painting. We talked about words like ‘focus”, “sketching”, “dreams”, “age” and “portraits”. Time, as ever, flew in very fast. The group tuned in immediately and didn’t seem to be phased at all by the virtual connection.

I showed the children examples of Blake’s work and also showed them how other artists used watercolours. We experimented with colour washes inspired by these artworks.

Inspired by the BFG, I had ordered jars to keep the children’s work safe. Everyone has one and the plan is that throughout this phase of work we can use these vessels to store imaginative work of all kinds.

 

 

In preparation for our next phase, Mrs Wilson and myself have been spending time working out our new direction. We have been sharing inspiration and finding new threads within the curriculum. Our common ground stems from the portrait work in the last phase, the wonderful work of Quentin Blake and Roald Dahl and the idea of developing identity over time.

To round off our 2015/16 project the children spent time reviewing their work, laying out everything that they had created in the school hall. The rest of the children in the school had an opportunity to look at the work with children from P1 to P7 coming in to see what we had been doing throughout the phase. The children in the project received very positive feedback from other students and teachers. They were particularly interested in the views of older children who had been involved in Virtually There themselves.

 

From all of this work -and the volume of artwork is impressive -the children selected the artworks that they wanted to share with the wider school community and worked with Mrs Wilson and Tanya to create two noticeboards of artwork. Every child’s work was represented and there was a real sense of achievement. Events like this allow the children to understand that their work is taken seriously and valued outside the context of the sessions.

 

I am constantly inspired by the children’s artwork and this phase has produced some incredibly beautiful work. The children’s drawing skills have developed considerably and they have worked so freely taking risks and expressing their own vision. The project doesn’t just happen in a vaccum: Mrs Wilson’s commitment continues to underpin the work. It is a partnership that I prize very highly. Tanya has been a wonderful asset to the project and in all of our work been supported by the school principal, parents, grandparents and siblings. Thanks to all in the Donaghey Primary School family for everything and to Kids’ Own for keeping the project rolling through the ACNI and Arts Development funding.