St. Mary's P.S. | Class Journal

For our final session with our artist Joe Coveney, Joe made the long journey from Dublin to Cabragh, Co Tyrone.

Joe came up with the idea of concluding our project on ‘interconnectedness’ by creating life size sculptures using bamboo sticks in small groups and then joining these together into one large piece. It was a big challenge but the class were up with it!

We began the session by discussing the positive and negative points of the online lessons with Joe. We then moved onto discussing how we were going to make a sculpture with sticks, like we have been doing in previous weeks, except this time we would be making much larger ones with bamboo sticks. We discussed the possible difficulties that may arise from it and how we were going to make the joints. Masking tape was the best option we had so each group started practicing making simple joints with a few sticks.

Soon the children were beginning to form ideas of how they wanted their structure to look like. Luckily we had a spare classroom next door to ours so there was lots of space available for the 5 groups.

An hour late, each group had created some brilliant sculptures. After the break we then looked at each other’s creation and then discussed how we could pair up some of each groups scultpure and make it into a larger one….. this was lots of fun and it required lots of thinking and work from the children but I think the final pieces speak for themselves. Joe and I were delighted and amazed with what they achieved.

Unfortunately after the children spent a couple of hours building their sculptures, they all had to come down again. The children really enjoyed this different form of Art and Design that they have been studying the past 3 months and, along with myself, they have gained a lot from this experience. Thanks to Joe for his time and hard work throughout the project and Ruth for all her assistance….. below are some photos from the day.

Mr Mc Anespie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the second part of our fifth session with Joe, we discussed how each of the sculptures have many paths or routes in them and that we could represent these different paths by painting each one a separate colour. I felt this linked really well to our central theme of ‘interconnectedness’.

To do this, each group had to choose one starting point and then follow it, making sure it didn’t clash with another person’s route in the process.

The children chose bright colours when painting their paths and it really brought them to life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the final results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first part of our fifth session we developed the theme of the previous lesson of tracing the shadow outline of our sculptures created by the sun.

This time we decided to create layers of shadows using colouring pencils/pastels. Once the children coloured their first shadow layer of their sculpture, they rotated or moved their creation so a different shadow was created on the card. This was then drawn with a different colour and this process of layering was repeated 3-4 times.

In a lot of the shadow outlines, we could clearly see aspects of their 3D creation and how it looks on a 2D form (i.e. the card).

Once again, we hit very lucky with the weather as the early morning sunshine and clear skies meant that it was perfect conditions for going outside and drawing the shadows.

Below are some photos of the Primary 7’s work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we carried on our work on how we are all connected together, just like in the universe.

We used some grey clay this time to make the joints as the children found the plasticine didn’t hold the sticks as well causing the sculptures to collapse. Some other groups also used masking tape to make their joints.

This session Joe thought it would be a good idea to draw the reflections each group’s stick sculptures made onto white card. As the weather was so nice and warm this week, this was a great way to take our project outside for a half hour.

Below are photos of the results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then took our work out of the class room for half an hour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the final results;

 

On Tuesday we continued looking at stick sculptures with our artist Joe. We looked at some abstract objects that could be made with the wooden sticks and the plasticine in small groups of 5 children approx.

We then progressed onto combining each small group’s abstract sculptures with a partnering group using string/wool. It was really fun to see how the sculptures all combined together with another group’s creation…. I hope you can see this in the photos!

Below are some of the sculptures….. as you can see hopefully, the white card as a background really makes the creations stand out!

“It was difficult in the middle of making the shape because once you put another part on, the other part fell. Overall it was really cool and fun. My shape was random and when I finished it collapsed.” ORLAITH

 

“I thought it was a bit hard because it kept falling down. I put more plasticine and it started to stay in shape.” HANNAH

 

“I thought this would be hard at the start but it got easier as time passed.  It was really enjoyable.” LOUIS

 

Joining the individual structures together was difficult as some of the structures were fragile and fell apart while being moved.

They look very effective with the white card backdrop.

Here is a different view to the same sculpture in the previous photo. This picture was taken from an aerial perspective!

 

Hannah, Sarah and Caoimhe give some feedback to Joe on how they attached their individual structures together.

 

 

 

Michael, Brendan and Odhran giving Joe some feed back on the process of building their structure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I just didn’t know what I was doing at the beginning but gradually it became this abstract creation.” CAOIMHE L.

 “I tried to make my sculpture as futuristic as possible. It was very fragile and it soon fell over.” RONAN MC E.

“My structure tried to represent an explosive star in the solar system. It was difficult to keep the structure upright and it collapsed!” JUDE

This photograph demonstrated it’s instability, but it still looks good!

On a recent session with our artist Joe, we looked at creating 3D sculptures made from wooden kebab sticks and plasticine. We found this really enjoyable but sometimes our sculptures kept falling down or breaking.

Here are some photos of us making them and then the final products!

Some of the 2D mind scapes the P7’s created using paper and drawing on contour lines. They then created them into various 3D shape forms.

Here are some of the mind maps we created all around the theme of Space. These were created in approx 15 mins and I think they look fab. Joe loved them too! Together we were exploring all the different ways of how we are all connected together in the universe.

Mr Mc Anespie

 

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