Category: Art

Below is a link to my presentation on art therapy relating to people with learning disabilities. All references are included in the slides.

Art Therapy presentation

Below is my evocative object, the paragraph about my object and the finished art piece.

A vast amount of time.

Infinite.

What could I achieve? Who will I be?

In an infinite amount of time will the world be the same?

We might fly around on hover boards, zooming through the sky.

An infinite amount of time is a lifetime. A lifetime full of happiness, sorrow, love and hope.

A life lived to the fullest.

To infinity and beyond.

I choose to combine my words into the infinity symbol by writing the words in the shape of the symbol and in the middle.

 

 

“Museums inspire powerful and identity-building learning in children, young people and community members“

(DCMS, 2003-2004)

This week’s session took place in Kelvingrove art gallery in Glasgow. I had never been to this particular art gallery so it was a fantastic experience. We were able to take part in various workshops and activities while visiting that are widely available to primary classes across the country.

One particular activity which I found to be interesting if doing with children was the feely bags. We had to put our hand into the bag and feel an object whilst looking at the painting ‘Still Life’ by David Horn, and find the object in the painting. This activity is great to stimulate a child’s imagination as they are using multiple senses, not just their sight. This also introduces children to a wider range of vocabulary when describing objects. Activities like this would engage children more than just looking at a painting, especially children who are more ‘hands-on’ learners.

We then proceeded to take part in creating a drama performance, using the painting ‘Windows in the West’ as our stimulus. The class worked as one big group and chose a scene from one of the windows to act out. I thought this was a great idea as there were so many different options for different types of dramas that could’ve been created, due to the wide variety of artwork throughout the gallery. This could even be related to a class topic such as the Ancient Egyptians, as there are many exhibits and displays in Kelvingrove, as well as artwork.

According to  DCSM (2003-2004) museums “Target and motivate disadvantaged individuals and groups effectively”. This is something which I have witnessed while on placement. There was a child who struggled to focus and stay on task, however, when it cames to the arts he excelled and engaged fully. Therefore, visiting an art gallery would be hugely beneficial for this child as he could explore, imagine and create the arts in a practical manner.

References

• DCSM (2003-2004) Inspiration, Identity, Learning: The Value of Museums. [Online] Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=715071 [Accessed  5 April 2017]

During this week’s session, we looked at the concept of turning STEM programmes into STEAM. Personally, through placement experience and my own school experience, a lot of schools are encouraging and using STEM projects, to get children more engaged with science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This is an attempt on the schools part to prepare children for the rise in jobs in these fields in the future.

Even though highlighting these particular areas will provide children with great opportunities to excel in these fields, there are other skills and qualities that are vital for a child’s development, such as creativity and innovation. This is where STEAM comes in.

Adding the arts into STEM education “removes limitations and replaces them with wonder, critique, inquiry and innovation.”

(Education Closet, 2017)

Below is a TED talk about why the integration of art into STEAM is so vitally important.

“In my opinion, I have always felt that the arts and science go hand and hand, as the two are related in many ways. Being a musician I appreciate that being able to read music is a mathematical process in itself. Many mathematicians were also musicians, such as Albert Einstein.”

(Bailey, D. and Borwein, J. 2016)

Although, through my own placement experience, I have not seen much of the STEAM project I am particularly interested in the implementation of it. I believe that it is a crucial component of a child’s development and should be present in every school.

References

• Bailey, D. and Borwein, J. (2016) Why are so many mathematicians also musicians? [Online] Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-bailey/why-are-so-many-mathemati_b_9814796.html [Accessed 9 April]
• Education Closet. (2017) What is Steam? [Online] Available: http://educationcloset.com/steam/what-is-steam/ [Accessed 9 April 2017]

 

Before todays session, if someone would have asked me what animation was I would have answered cartoons. This is a common answer for people of this generation or later. Animation is a filmmaking technique where illusion of motion is created frame-by-frame. The word comes from Latin word, ‘anima’ meaning ‘life’ or ‘soul’.

Animation can be traced back to sequences of images used to decorate the walls of Egyptian tombs. Since then, the quest of capturing motion has been a common theme for artistic endeavour and its applications are diverse, ranging from motion pictures and games to medicine and scientific simulation.

This method of art is especially beneficial for visual learners who are motivated by pictures and sound and prefer to express themselves in this medium rather than through traditional methods. Animation gives pupils the opportunity to develop visual literacy skills and build problem-solving skills.

Through this session I was able to create an animation using sand. This method is time consuming but will teach pupils patience and how to look at the tiny details of things in order to create something beautiful. My group decided to create a story about finding love.

Below is some pictures of the process.

Through patience and paying attention to detail we were able to create a short animation. To create the look of continuous film, we had to create a picture in the sand and take around 25 pictures per frame. Below is the animation we created. Unfortunately, the file with the video is not supported by this blog, therefore a screenshot of the video has been inserted.

References

• phttp://www.movingimageeducation.org/
• http://www.fractuslearning.com/2013/12/06/animation-in-the-classroom

“Theory enables us, for example, to explore how everyday objects become part of our inner life: how we use them to extend the reach of our sympathies by bringing the world within.”

Today was our first insight into this module and we spent some time going over what we were to expect from the module and the different areas that we will be covering. The following passage gives a summary of the module.