Creative Schools
Jan 22nd, 2014 by Colm Ó Tuathail
Welcome to our blog for our Artist in Schools Scheme Project 2017
Title: “From Socks2strings”
“From Socks to Strings: A creative exploration of where our imagination will take us through the world of storytelling, puppetry, and oral language”.
Click on the link to see our Photo Diary following the project from start to finish. We hope you enjoy it.
Project Theme:
The title of our project is “From Socks to Strings: A creative exploration of where our imagination will take us through the world of storytelling, puppetry, and oral language”. We aim to explore the world of storytelling to enhance the oral language experience of the junior class in our school. We hope to explore character profiles, model good story telling and allow the children to explore dramatic conventions and practice the structures and features of the narrative while engaging the more shy and reluctant speakers. We hope to give opportunities to use language to entertain, to support improvisational drama, spontaneous role play, tell experiences and experiment with new ideas and vocabulary. The project will also allow the children to explore puppet design and creating puppets for their characters, to bring their stories to life.
We want to encourage in the students a love of story, storytelling and story-making through listening to an experienced storyteller tell a series of meaningful stories. Students will be encouraged to take part in games and exercises to help develop their own imaginative capacity, creating characters, landscapes and plots, and culminating in creating and sharing their own stories, with the aid of simple puppets.
The project will be a junior class initiative where all children from junior infants to 1st class, will engage with the artist/storyteller to explore their own creativity.
The Artist Concept – Ruth Marshall
Storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of creative expression. Even before we had language, we still had stories that we shared through sound, gesture and eye contact.
As a storyteller, my head is full of pictures, and my task is, through my telling, to help others create their own images. In our screen-dominant world, where we are faced with so many ready-made images, we are in danger of losing our imaginations. Now more than ever, children need stories, and the powers of creative imagination. I believe storytelling is a healing balm that awakens and nurtures imagination, wonder and possibilities. A good story can change how we think, how we see the world, and how we decide to act in it.
I love stories and storytelling; I love to see a group children spellbound by the power and mystery of a tale. I fell in love with storytelling when I realised that stories touched a very deep part of me, and stayed with me, living within me, waiting to be retold.
I tell stories from that deep place within me: a place of presence. In telling stories or in teaching the art of storytelling and story-making, my intention is to put others in contact with that same place within them, and to nurture their imaginations – the country of images. I encourage children to speak and write from the land of images that is alive within them.
To become a storyteller, one needs to listen to good storytellers. A good storyteller has a presence that encourages powerful listening. Students will be encouraged to first of all listen, then to imitate, and ultimately to express themselves freely in a love of oral language.
________________________________________________________________________________
Welcome to our blog for our Creative Schools Project 2015
Title: “A chip off Gaudí”
Our identity within the community of East Clare represented through mosaic.
Click on the link to see our initial project proposal form.
Scroll down along the page to see all the wonderful work we are doing! We would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions, tips or comments. You can contact us:
Post a comment on our blog: http://bodykens.scoilnet.ie/blog/
Send us an Email: bodykens@gmail.com
Or Send a Tweet (Twitter): @bodykens
Project Theme:
The project will be a whole school initiative where all children from junior infants to sixth class will explore their own creativity in response to the theme of identity within the community of East Clare. We hope to ultimately develop each child’s unique response to the traditional music and sport of their community both past and present and allow them to experiment with the different creative possibilities this allows.
As the working title ‘A Chip off Gaudí’ suggests, the artistic process although it will cover a large selection of different processes and mediums, will ultimately result in a series of mosaics that we hope will slot together to form a permanent abstract mosaic fresco on the outside gable wall of the school.
Brief Description of the Project:
In response to the children’s study of the mosaic work of artists such as Colette O Brien, Emma Biggs, Marcelo José de Melo and Antoni Gaudi, we want to give the children the opportunity to explore the process of designing and creating a mosaic piece of their own. The project will develop each child’s unique response to their identity within the community of East Clare.
The children had loved doing the glass mosaic for our Creative Arts project last year but would have liked to have had more time so we decided that we would build on their experience and do something bigger in mosaic.
Here are the glass mosaics that the children completed as part of our Burren Project last year:
They will also have the chance to build on their experience of the medium last year and explore it on a much bigger scale to create a permanent mosaic fresco on the outside gable wall, to promote a sense of achievement. The mosaic will represent the children’s identity within the local community and will symbolise what is important in their lives.
The children wanted a project that would have a big visual impact and suggested an outdoor mosaic. So the teachers looked at possible areas and together decided which wall would suit.
Check out the Creative Schools blog here.
Welcome to our blog for our Creative Schools Project.
Title: “The Burren – Beauty through the Crevices”
Exploring the creative learning potential of this barren rocky landscape…past and present.
The whole school is taking part in the project along with our principal Colm O’Tuathail, and teachers Éadaoin Ryan and Liam Quirke. Click on the link to see our initial project proposal form. Project Proposal Template 2013 14
Through our study of the Burren and in particular the areas of Archaeology, Fauna, Flora, Farming/Agriculture/Community, History, and Geology and the Landscape, we aim to explore the processes within Art, Craft, Drama, Music, Creative Writing, and Film.
Scroll down along the page to see all the wonderful work we have be doing! We would love to hear from you if you have any suggestions, tips or comments. You can contact us:
Post a comment on our blog: http://bodykens.scoilnet.ie/blog/
Send us an Email: bodykens@gmail.com
Or Send a Tweet (Twitter): @bodykens
Spinning Workshop
We completed a Spinning Workshop during which we followed the story of wool from the fleece of a sheep that had just been shorn, through the carding process and learned how to use a spindle and spinning wheel to spin wool to make the yarn. We will be using the wool we spun ourselves in our weaving later in the project!
We learned about the dyeing process used long ago and how natural dyes can be made from plants and flowers. Finally, we learned about different ways that we can use the wool to make garments including knitting, crochet and felting.
Click on our link to see the booklet we wrote about the spinning project. Our Spinning Workshop
Wet Felting Workshops
During our Felting workshops, we learned the wet felting process from the designing and layering of the wool to the technique needed to felt the wool together.
Finally, once the pieces were fully dry, they were cut up into sections and we each sewed them into our very own pencil cases.
Click on our link to see the booklet we wrote about the wet felting process. Wet Felting Booklet
Here are some of our Reflections on the Wet Felting:
Knitting – The Big Knit
As part of this project, all children in the school were taught how to knit, another wonderful craft that was very popular in times gone by and is popular again today. Everyone helped to create little woolly hats to help support ‘Innocent Smoothies’ initiative to raise much needed money for Age Action in Ireland.
People in the school and community knitted and crocheted little woolly hats. All hats knitted have been put on innocent smoothie bottles and 30c for every hatted bottle sold will go straight to Age Action to help older people stay well and stay warm this winter.
2013 was the fifth anniversary of the campaign in Ireland, supported by innocent drinks and we were delighted to have knitted a grand total of 444 hats. Over 65,000 hats were collected in total across Ireland. It also tied into our Burren project as we were learning about the produce of sheep and how throughout history, wool was used to create clothing. A fantastic result!
A Visit from the Ranger
David Lyons, Wildlife Ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, visited the school recently. He gave a presentation on the biodiversity around Bodyke and surrounding areas of East Clare. We learned about the local habitats and animals that live in our locality, and in the surrounding countryside and woodlands of our school. The children were captivated by his presentation and in particular the stuffed animals he brought along. All students had the opportunity to get up close to the examples in his collection and have fun examining bats, stroking prickly hedgehogs and rubbing our native red squirrels, to name but a few.
Later, we even had the opportunity to study these animals in greater detail through our visual art curriculum. We spent a lot of time drawing and painting them from different angles which integrated our learning back into our creative arts project.
Here are some of our Reflections on the Observational Drawings of the Animals:
Drawing from observation
We have also been developing our observational skills and our line drawing skills from nature.
Weaving
Inspired by artists who work with the environment and especially Andy Goldsworthy, we have been looking at the skill of weaving and interpreting it with our project theme in mind. We started using a simple loom using lollipop sticks to practice the basic technique of weaving:
We then started to incorporate natural elements and resources into our designs and weaves such as reeds, leaves, and tree bark:
We also held a weaving workshop, when the whole school got together to explore the medium of weaving using different techniques. We used a butterfly loom to create a grid like weave design. We even learned that weaving does not have to be done on a traditional loom but that it is possible to weave on anything that can be strung with warp threads – even drinking straws! Take a look at what we created!
Here are some of our Reflections on the Weaving work:
Clay
Our clay work took it’s inspiration from the Burren Face carvings and from the ‘Sheela na Gig’. We started with a square slab and carved into the clay to mimic the stone carvings of the time. We started by drawing some stylised line drawings of each other and experimented with light and shade. We then used a variety of found objects to carve into the clay to produce our clay ‘face carvings’.
Here are some of our Reflections on the Clay Tile work:
We further developed the concept by exploring other symbols of the Burren such as the Fauna, Flora, high crosses, tower houses and tombs. We used the same technique to carve into the clay but the children later wanted to explore more 3d relief work with fantastic results….
Through our study of the Archaeology of the Burren, we learned about the Famine Roads. The Famine Road, or Bóthar na Gorta, is a very evocative monument associated with the poverty and hardship of the famine. These roads were painstakingly constructed by hand by desperate men, women and children in order to fend off starvation. Local Landlords would commission these roads as a means of creating work for the local population. The children were eager to learn more about the Famine times and to represent this topic through the Arts. In the Junior room, we started to brainstorm a series of words and symbols that would represent the Famine for them. They decided to make a bowl and spoon from the clay and to use key words and images to decorate them. Here are some examples of their work:
Here are some of our Reflections on the clay pots and spoons work:
Music
We held a series of whole school music workshops to engage the children and to start this strand of the Burren Project. The children were divided into groups to explore the themes of the Burren musically and to interpret different sounds and incorporate them into short compositions. The children decided to graphically represent each piece and performed them to the whole group.
When exploring what the Burren offers and discussing the different parts of the project, we felt music would allow each child to increase their understanding of the Burren by using their creativity and imagination to link stories and visual images through music.
As the creative project is led by the children their creativity in composing and performing music was essential to adding music to the project. Images added to the website and recordings show that children worked in a collaborative manner and towards a clear objective of exploring and creating ‘sounds of the Burren’.
When deciding on how sounds would be created, the different groups of children were encouraged to use body parts and objects from the classroom to explore sounds which could create ‘sounds of the Burren’. All images for music notation were on display on the board for all groups to see. Each group was observed while creating their music chart. This was important in order to prepare for further steps in the music process. This was also important for the children to reflect on their work and to decide on changes to make and how they could and would introduce instruments when composing and performing the ‘sounds of the Burren’.
Click on our link to review a teacher’s blog entry on our music workshops Music – The Creative Process – blog entry
Here are some of our Reflections on the music workshops:
Writing!
Film Project! Storyboarding, shot lists and camera angles!
During the film strand of the project so far, students used storyboards to plan a story by giving each a caption and a sentence describing what is happening in each frame. Pupils were put in groups and they created their own storyboards based on the theme of the Famine. Children were then encouraged to think of appropriate camera angles while they were deciding on drawings for each frame – e.g. close-up, mid-shot, long shot – as they created their storyboards. Students asked each other questions like “Which shot do you think is more dramatic?” or “Is it better to see a character’s face close up when they speak?” When all storyboards were complete, we mounted and displayed them around the classroom in sequence and had an exhibition!
Click on our link to read a teacher’s blog entry on the film process Teacher Reflection – Film
Working on some poetry based on the theme of the Famine!
We painted the landscape of the Burren!
Using Keynote and Book Creator on our iPads for creative writing!
Construction:
A large number of small villages or ‘clacháns’ are found across the Burren, many of them abandoned during the famine as their inhabitants died or emigrated. The houses in these settlements would have been built with local limestone, thatched with hazel scallops and thatch made of reeds, straw or grass and even turf! Most of the houses had just two rooms and a couple of small windows. The students decided they wanted to make their own houses that would reflect those of the time. They also had the idea of creating a small settlement so once the houses have been constructed, we are going to start on the bigger model.
First the children decided to construct the basic structure out of lollipop sticks and glue.
Then everyone designed their own house for the settlement. They began to mimic the external rendering using stones, and/or whitewash and also covered the roof area with reeds, straw, turf or slate! We haven’t finished yet but see what we have done so far….
Here are some of our Reflections on the Famine Houses construction work:
Construction: Making coffin ships. More pictures to follow!
Our Diary Entries
Diary Entry: Shane O ‘ Halloran Kirby 5th class
Fís
We are doing Fís this year. Fís is a film project we are doing it on the famine as part of creative schools.
we have done some story boards and decided to put a bit of each story board in the movie.
Fís is very fun every thing in Fís is done by the pupils with some help from the teachers.
Mr Quirke bought a video recorder for the school.
We have not decided on which job goes to who.
We will be acting some of it in the Burren .
We will be doing much more work on Fís!!!!!
Felting
A month or two ago we did felting.
We used different colors to make a blanket of wool.
Then we put a sheet of plastic over the wool.
After we poured hot water on the plastic and we spread out the water over the sheet we waited a while then we took off the plastic .
After a minute we cut pieces of the wool of and sowed it in a certain shape and made a pencil case.
That was fun.!!!!!!!
Diary Entry: Stephen Kennedy, 6th Class.
Music Workshops
We had an excellent day when we learnt all about Burren sounds and merged them together to make music.
After we made music using animal sounds and weather sounds and all natural sounds, we we allowed to use percussion instruments.
If you closed your eyes you would think you were in the Burren. All in all we had a great morning!!!
Drawing the Animals
David Lyons, Wildlife Ranger visited our school to tell us about the animals in our area. He brought detailed models of the animals for us to borrow for the week.
We used the models the next day for art with Mrs. Ryan. We drew pictures of the animals and painted them as well.
We really enjoyed using the models for drawing!!!
Diary Entry: Lydia Nolan , 6th Class
Learning About The Burren
For creative schools we had a worker from the burren to come in and talk to us. Her name was Áine. She came to the school while we were outside for break. While we were outside she had hidden numbers attached to objects around the room. When we came in it was a great scuffle for the feather that was in plain view on the wall. It was number seven. I reached it first and everyone began to search again.
The items/objects were a feather, book, stick, rock, butterfly flip chart, a picture, a pencil, and a tin whistle. Not everyone found something as there was one thing left to find and one person with nothing. It was a book and no one could find it. I found it in the library hidden among the other books. I found it because I was sitting next to the library and I saw the number stuck to the top of it. It was number five. We enjoyed the search but it was a little difficult.
After we had found something we were asked to crowd around the fifth class table. She called out the numbers one by one and each time she called out a number, that number was attached to an object. As we handed them up she explained to us what the object was and what it was about. Also how it was linked to the burren and it’s cultures.
We enjoyed learning about the burren and enjoyed ourselves very much. We had fun watching the different experiments she did also. We especially enjoyed the one about the acid rain on the rock that we found. The acid rain made the rock sizzle and dried again almost immediately. Everyone enjoyed themselves, while learning also.
Diary Entry: Seán Wiley, 5th Class
Music Workshop
The music workhouse was held in our school. We were making all kind of different sounds that would be heard in the Burren. We had to make all kind of different sounds and put them all together and make a song. What I found difficult was when you had to put all the sounds together and make a song. Everyone had to go into groups and make a song out of natural sounds. I really enjoyed listing to all the groups and there natural sounds. It was really interesting. I enjoyed listing to all the sounds and presenting the songs too.
Diary Entry: Ronan Kennedy, 5th class
The school organised a wildlife ranger to come to the school. What we saw was excellent. We learned about all the local animals that live around us. We heard some animal sounds and watched some videos on how they live. Plus, the ranger brought some stuffed models of the wild Irish animals. There was a hare, pin martin, hedgehog and lots more. It was a very good day. A couple of days after, Ms Ryan came in to us for an art lesson on how to draw an animal without looking. It was very hard to do, but it was fun at the same time. The thing that all of us thought was hard was when we did the drawing. All of our drawings were basically scribbles. I think that was a big part in creative schools.
Diary Entry: murielle murray, 6th class.
Writing the poems and narratives about the Burren!
I liked writing the poems because I wouldn’t really do a poem so I loved doing it.It’s really fun because when you’re done you go up and tell the teacher and explain why you wrote it.
I also liked doing the narratives as well. It was really fun. When I finished doing my narrative on the Ipad Mr.O’ Toole said ‘‘Go into Miss. Ryan’s room and show your narrative to her’’. So I went in and showed my narrative to her. She said it was very good. I also liked when the ranger came and talked about all the animals that are in Ireland. It was very exciting. We got to see the hare,bats and a lot more. I liked drawing the plants and the animals that you could see at the Burren. I loved all the things that we did for the Burren so far. I can’t wait till we visit the Burren on Monday.
Our Photo Stories 6th Class
By Lydia Nolan
By Stephen Kennedy
Our Burren Trip
We had a fantastic day when we visited the Burren recently as part of our project. Students were able to get a closer look at the amazing geology, the unusual plants and animals, and see what their ancestors may have been up to in the past.
We started our day at Leamanagh castle where one of the most legendary characters from the Burren, Máire Rua came from. She got her name from her red hair and fiery temper. She lived at Leamanagh Castle in the south of the Burren and legend has it that she had 25 husbands, all of whom died in mysterious circumstances! Her ghost is still reputed to haunt the castle.
The Burren has been aptly described as being like a book written in stone. This is because there are so many layers of monuments to be seen here, from the New Stone Age (Neo-lithic) to the present day. Each monument tells a story of its time – just like a chapter in a book. our next stop was Poulnabrone portal tomb which is a Burren icon which dates from c. 5800 bp(before present). It was excavated and found to contain the remains of up to 21 people buried over six centuries.
One of the great things about the Burren that over 360 million years of geology is all around us here, making it the perfect outdoor classroom, great for exploring. We spent time visiting the Old Carran church and field station in Carran where we explored the limestone pavements. Limestone pavement is one of the most obvious features of the Burren. It is made up of blocks of limestone called clints separated by vertical, linear fissures called grikes. We all had a fantastic time in the Burren and came back full of ideas to explore through the Creative Arts…here are some of our photos..
Glass Mosaic
We wanted to give the children the opportunity to explore the process of designing and creating a series of glass on glass mosaics in response to their exploration of the Burren. They had the choice of responding to themes such as the geology, fauna and flora of this unique environment concentrating on their compositional skills and giving them the opportunity to experiment with shape and colour.
The children were encouraged to use colour expressively as they designed their mosaic pieces in 2D and then to translated and transformed them into 3 dimensions. Given the nature of glass mosaic, the children will have the opportunity to experiment with a variety of shapes in their compositions to represent their theme. They will also have the chance to experience a medium not previously explored and will have created a series of lasting artwork panels that will be displayed around the school to promote a sense of achievement.
We had two days of working with the glass mosaic the junior class worked together on Wednesday and the senior class on Thursday…here are some photos..
Images from the senior workshop
After the mosaics had a chance to dry out, we were able to grout them:
Our pieces are now proudly displayed on all the windowsills around the school for all to see!
Our Glass Mosaics Diary Entry: Stephen Kennedy, 6th Class
Last week, we got the opportunity to construct a glass mosaic. We were put in to groups and we decided on a design based on the Burren. I enjoyed when we were shown how to cut the glass and when it was my go to cut the glass I thought it would be difficult but it was very easy. When we started the mosaic by putting the design under the plain sheet of glass and gluing the small pieces of glass on to the plain glass, we found it hard deciding on the correct colours for our design which was a hare. In the end we used yellows, reds and oranges for the hare and we used darker colours for the background. It was important to choose the right colours so that the main design and the background weren’t too alike. It was difficult trying to pick up the small pieces of glass because you had to be careful not to cut yourself. Fortunately I didn’t get cut. I got excited near the end where we were nearly finished and when we were, there was still a few changes to make. I really enjoyed this new experience and I would love to do it again!!!
Our Trip to the Burren
We went to the Burren, anticipating seeing the rocks and the portal dolmen. It certainly lived up to all our expectations as it was amazing. After learning so much about the Burren as that is our theme for the Creative Schools Project, it was outstanding to see everything up close. My favourite part was when we went to the old church in Carran. We had to find different things inside and outside of the church. When we went to see the portal dolmen, I enjoyed jumping from rock to rock, exploring through every crevice in search of a fossil. We found shells in rocks that were millions of years old. At the end we went to a place in the Burren were there was lots of deep grykes in the ground. We were given long sticks and we were trying to find the deepest grykes. When we found the deepest one, we dropped stones down the crevice. They were pretty deep!!! I enjoyed looking for different types of moss and plants. I found looking for the deepest grykes difficult. I really enjoyed our trip to the Burren!!!
GLASS MOSAIC Diary Entry: Murielle Murray, 6th class
On Thursday last week we did glass mosaics at school. Our teacher named Natalie demonstrated how to start from scratch. We had to do animals of the Burren. The whole school was excited. The first thing we had to do was cut the glass. The whole school got a go of cutting. My team Sean Wiley and Sean Cooney did a tawny owl. The tawny owl is common at the Burren. When we started doing the mosaic it was really hard to figure out where to start. The hardest part of the whole process was trying to cut the glass and trying to fill in the gaps on the mosaic. We all had a great experience learning how to make a mosaic and trying not to cut you!
OUR TRIP TO THE BURREN
We went to the Burren to learn about the rocks, animals, flowers and lots more. Our guide Bridget showed us all the interesting things. It was very fascinating to find things. I enjoyed going to the ruined church and jumping from rock to rock at the Burren. I liked playing the games there as well. It was a brilliant experience to know much more about the Burren.
Diary Entry: Sean Wiley, Fifth Class
We did the mosaic in our school. Mosaic was really interesting because there were all different kinds of glass. I did the owl I was in a group there were three people in the group including me. I got cut by glass when you got cut it would hurt for a few minutes and then you wouldn’t fell it after that. What I found hard was that sticking the glass onto the frame because the glue kept sticking onto your hand. I never did mosaic before. Cutting the glass was easy it looked difficult at first but then when you got the hang of it you were all right. It was hard when you were in a group because you needed to listen to other peoples opinions. Drawing out the animals was easy; we had to draw two sheets because if the first one was too hard you would have another one to do. We didn’t get to cut the glass as much was because it was too dangerous.
Teacher Reflection
The project so far:
Pupils are really enjoyed practicing the acting element of Fís. The storyboards were extremely useful but students found that they needed to change them as they went along to make the scene more engaging for others to watch. Some students enjoyed the planning stage of the film. Students also found the process of storyboarding boring to begin with and can only now see the benefit to them as they begin to act out the different scenes of the film. One student found discussing the characters extremely engaging. They enjoyed talking about the different personalities each character might have and how they would change over the course of the film. Discussing camera angles as a class, looking for the correct angle to make a scene more interesting was something they really enjoyed doing. Acting out each scene and giving advice to each other on how to make it better was extremely motivating.
Pupils loved working on the mosaics and doing clay models of the Burren. A Fourth class pupil enjoyed painting the flora and fauna of the Burren, drawing the animals the Wildlife ranger brought with him but found the task challenging. The same pupil really enjoyed using ICT to further investigate the local wildlife of the Burren. Students found the talk and discussion element of the visual arts lessons particularly motivating. A group of pupils didn’t like the weaving as they thought it the task was quite repetitive. Another pupil spoke of her great excitement and anticipation at taking part in an interactive tour of the Burren.
More Clay work!!
The children enjoyed the clay work in the project so much, that they wanted some additional time to spend on designing and making some more clay tiles but also to try some more 3D pieces under the theme of the Burren. They decided that they didn’t want to be limited by a particular topic of the Burren and were given free reign to choose the aspect that they were most interested in. The variety across all themes was evident. Here is a small sample….
More Fís…
Our Creative endeavours didn’t end there however 😉
We have been working extremely hard on the development of our drama. Storyboards, camera angles and camera shots have been made, edited, changed, reviewed, changed again, discussed, changed, disputed, changed and no doubt this cycle will continue until the final product is filmed!! The children’s ability to co-operate and communicate with others in solving problems in the drama has been challenged and they have definitely entered into the fictional drama context, empathising with their characters and translating the historical context and story of the drama accurately and creatively. They have developed an appreciation of plot and theme and have engaged with the process with spontaneity and imagination.
The children have really engaged in the process. The majority of the work at the moment is finalising the content of each of the scenes and fine tuning them. It is at this point that the children are being challenged to critically assess the work that they are producing and it’s validity.
Here are some shots of us at work. We are also designing the wardrobe and choosing the locations where the final piece will be filmed. This we hope to have finished by the end of May when we can then engage in the editing process for the final deadline of the Fís film entries in June. More work has been filmed and saved in the creative schools dropbox folder.
Here is another teacher’s reflection on the Film process:
Fís Film Project
Since my last diary entry the students have begun preparing for film making. Pupils are really having to co-operate and communicating in making this film! We held auditions for parts in the film and students often took the opportunity to reflect on a particular dramatic action as they acted spontaneously while in character. This has the effect of improving each scene of the film and enables students to shape it. There has also been a number of changes to the original storyboards but pupils now see this as a natural part of the film making process. This heightened sense of self-awareness has encouraged the students to add a soundtrack for certain scenes of the film, underling its tragic nature. Finally the students have also discovered how the use of space and objects helps in building the context and in signifying the theme of the film e.g. to portray a coffin ship scene in the film the pupils arranged themselves and objects to representcramped and uncomfortable conditions.
Art in Nature and from Nature
Andy Goldsworthy heavily influenced much of the Fabric and Fibre strands of the project. After studying a lot of his work, the children were very excited about creating their own pieces and then translating them into a piece of weaving.
They were very influenced by the circular nature of some of his artwork, the contrasts in texture, patterns and movement. They wanted to experiment with shape and texture in compositions made from found objects in the school grounds. They became increasingly aware of patterns in their environment but also in the potential of the objects that they found. My class was never as enthusiastic during an art lesson and the children were fully engrossed and immersed in their pieces. Unfortunately were are unable to predict the weather in Clare yet…our intention was to create our pieces outside in nature but instead we had to settle for the classroom when the heavens poured ;-(
Check out their pieces:
More Weaving!
Using the ideas generated from the Art from Nature pieces, the children came up with the idea of translating it into a large woven piece. This later became two very different pieces as you will see.
The first was circular in shape. We used pieces of willow to create a circular loom loosely inspired from a wheel and the spokes radiating from a circular centre. Using a large variety of fabric and fibre from cut up t-shirts, old rope, willow and even straw, the children built on the skills from previous weaving workshops, to produce the ‘Eye of the Burren’!
We had a lot of difficulty bending the willow to the right shape and each material in turn, created their own problems and challenges. How do you stop the ‘warp’ spokes from popping out!? How can we keep the pieces of straw from falling apart?! How do you bend the smaller pieces of willow around the warp? The weaving started out as a joint project between the junior and the senior class but the senior class soon lost interest as they found the task to be too repetitive. The junior class found it difficult to solve the problems each of the individual materials posed but were thrilled when they finished the piece today on the deadline of the Creative Arts Project.!!! phew 😉
We also created a second piece entitled ‘Beauty through the Crevices’ which represents all the different aspects of our study of the Burren.
We used carded wool and even pieces of our wet felting from the beginning of the year. We wove in pieces from nature including pieces of bark, moss, and dead ivy creepers that were cleared from the wall in our yard! The piece represents the large limestone pavements that the karst landscape of the Burren is renowned for, the criss-crossing cracks known as ‘grikes’ and the isolated rocks called ‘clints’. Despite the barren like nature of the landscape, the children learned that in between the rocks in these grikes lives and breathes a large variety of plants, flora and insects. It is this life and growth that gives the Burren a magical splash of colour that is dotted and dispersed between the contrasting grey limestone rock.
A perfect end to the Creative Arts Project and a symbol of everything creative we have learned, explored, discovered, and enjoyed.
