Killard house school artist journal

We have been tracking down materials for costumes, and talking about how to create new silhouettes. We are still thinking about blending in and standing out. Some costumes may be group costumes others quite close to original avatars. We talked about building textiles from modular forms, like paper quills and cut out shapes. We talked about the quality of materials shiny or matt, reflective or dull, bendy or stiff we brainstormed where we could find materials from school recycling and other reserves, we talked about how we could join pieces using general supplies and improvised designs, we talked about our avatars

sophieCamouflage2 from Mainly Kids at Mixadacat on Vimeo.

We talked about altering our silhouettes

Curtis made a move to demonstrate how to do this, it was quite dynamic and balletic – we didn’t catch it on camera so we will remember it well.

We looked at costumes by textile artist/dancer Nick Cave

and we tried to figure out where his head has gone.

Curtis and I had a whiteboard conversation about disguises and transformations, Dean showed me some of his disguise ideas

As a whole class we thought about materials to make ourselves invisible in Mount Stewart, leaves, fluff and a big net from downstairs in the school

Students made drawings for their costumes, they are doing some work  with Ms Davey layering over their avatars using ipads

During the week they will play with altering silhouettes in their gym class and send me some photos – it’s a short week though – students and Ms Davy just 3 days to catch up with each other before St Patrick’s Day off

 

Curtis has given me a new identity – Julario

this is a gif from our conversation from today

The image is cropped but Curtis decided the Wario (Mario mutant) character merges with my disguise becoming Julario who turns into a zeppelin which carries me away….

We got back to some whiteboard conversations again last week talking about, making drawings with camouflaged avatars, about hiding and finding, drawing, layering and playing with colour and form.

deanTyler6March2017 from Mainly Kids at Mixadacat on Vimeo.

We have been working with the story of the Little Sea Hare and I’ve been thinking about visibility and invisibility, exploring ways of blending in chameleon-like and using  camouflage – mimicking and overlaying patterns from the environment, explored in 2 dimensions via layering with rubbing techniques
Students began this work by making and layering rubbings, focusing on shapes from their photos from Mount Stewart and working intuitively with colours and inserting silhouettes of their avatars.
Last Monday I read the story while students listened with instructions to close their eyes and create the images in their imagination. We also looked at David Hockney’s illustrations for the story. We will continue to discuss ideas from the story and tease out ideas and themes which will feed into our making/drawing.

We are noticing that our time together at 2 hours a week is very intensive work with artist/student and we need to build in some time for teacher to develop ideas with the students. This week the session will begin with Ms Davey and students working together to allow for a catch up with materials and progress with activity and extenuation of ideas.

It was useful to have an observer last week when our researcher was an invisible presence online.

Meantime I have been looking at fashion! Inspired by Burberry response to Henry Moore and also works of artist costume maker Nick Cave.

Nick Cave “Until” Exhibition

And from the Studio:

 

 

 

 

I have been making drawings building up layers, working intuitively I have been allowing colour to create form.

We are going to use a rubbing technique to explore this intuitive aproach to colour

While students were working with Wendy on their rubbings I had some whiteboard conversations with Curtis, Sophie and Dean.

Curtis was wondering which shapes to choose for his drawing, he started with an oval shape for a leaf, we discussed the detail of this the veins and how it attaches to the tree, the texture of the bark of the tree we talked about over laying colours how Curtiss liked the little spot where lines overlap – like the joint of a knee or an elbow, we played with different colours and and talked about how building up layers can show different seasons and different times of the day.

Dean came to show me his colourful rubbings. He wanted to know what to do next with it. We played with the rubbings as a kind of environment for characters

And Sophie was working with her avatar, practicing drawing over images

 

 

 

Getting Lost in mount Stewart – the myth grows – layering of virtual and real places

This may well be the last post of the year – Lara in the leaves