In our initial activity we used the carbon paper to make marks, firstly with our fingernails, then lightly with a pencil and finally exerting more pressure we made loops across the page. The children were amazed at the results and couldn’t believe how it duplicated their work. (Those of us who ever had ‘lines’ to do as a school punishment were well aware of the duplicating properties of carbon!)We began by looking at our hands and our wrists, our lower arms and our upper arms, and how we could use our different limbs to control an art stick.
In our next activity we made loopy movements in the air, and then we tried to recreate them on large pages using graphite sticks, restricting our movements by keeping one arm behind our back. Some of the pupils were able to create looped designs with amazing uniformity and regularity in their designs, showing a great deal of control and an awareness of the overall effect which was being achieved. There was again intense concentration involved.
For the next activity we moved outside to the playground where we continued to explore the loopy designs this time using large chunks of coloured playground chalk and an immense canvas to work on. This time the children’s movements weren’t restricted and they were able to use their whole bodies to control and direct the flow of the designs and patterns which they created.
The children used a great amount of energy, travelling as they worked, all the time keeping their chalk in contact with their canvas and exerting a huge degree of control and balance over their own bodies as they moved through their wonderful loopy designs. The work was challenging physically, but the children were very focussed on the tasks and the end results were wonderful. We had an entire playground covered in unique loopy designs and spiral patterns.
When we returned to the classroom we looked at some drawings from ‘The Blackboard Collection’ by Cy Twombly. The children were fascinated by his apparent ‘scribbles’ and we discussed what we had just done and what his work suggested to us.
