The fact that it was difficult for me to see the classes work as they were making it meant that I had a lovely surprise when they uploaded the photos.  The last session we looked at drawing the shadows of our sculptures.  Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day in Cabragh and the class enjoyed working outside in the sun.

At the beginning of session 5 we had a chat about how they got on.  I had mentioned how important it was to keep the models still as they drew around them, however, a few small problems presented themselves that I had not expected.

Although they kept the models still, the movement of the sun and the clouds made the shadow wobble a bit – making the drawing more difficult. Also, depending on the structure, some of them found it hard to trace in between the shape, to reach the shadows that fell inside the structure with their pencils.

All this aside, I was amazed by the work.  the drawings were so beautiful, and it was really interesting looking for links between the drawings and the original models.  Generally, the class were surprised by end results.

Thinking about our overall theme of interconnectedness, and staying with our wooden structures I thought we could look at specific routes through our sculptures.  How do they all connect up to form the overall piece.

As research I looked at work by artist Dan Shipsides – and his sculptures that mapped climbing routes.  I also looked at routes highlighting paths for mountaineers and highlighted walkways through buildings.

Some of the class had to remake their models again as the clay joints did not survive ll the movement – taking them oustside to draw and back in again.  They finally settled on using masking tape as the best material to join the wooden kebab stick together.

Once they all had models ready to go Damien and Ruth got them all set up for painting the different pathways through the models.

The technology was acting up a bit, long audio delays but I was delighted with the classes enthusiasm for the the work.  It was difficult to see the results during the session but I was really excited by the photos when they uploaded them all.