In todays art input, we were introduced to Room 13.  Room 13 is an art studio/business run by primary school students in  Fort William. It had originally started out as a spare room which was turned into  creative place where children could have the freedom to create any kind of art they want, , rather than following a teachers step by step instructions, which is unfortunately the way most art lessons are these days. Room 13 encourages independent learning and creative expression.

“Room 13 offers young people a platform from which to speak, and as a result of their experiences, there are areas of life about which they may speak with some authority.” (Gibb, 2012)

What had started out as a small project turned into an international network of studios, after the success of the original room 13.

We then went on to discuss some of the images produced in room 13. This was the image my group had:

The caption on it reads “Room 13 allows time to question. It is good to question whats going on, the reasons for things.” We spoke about how it is good for children to question, as it encourages them to become independent thinkers. Curiosity can also inspire creativity. Questioning also helps them to have a better understanding of the world around them, questioning shows that they want to learn. This fits in with a quote from Gibb about room 13, “students are introduced to a broad spectrum of ideas concerning not just arts, but political, social and environmental issues, timeless philosophical and international questions. They disseminate this information in a multitude of ways, and become adept at articulating responses and posing pertinent questions.” (Gibb, 2012)

Overall I feel that Room 13 promotes aspects of children’s learning in many areas, not just within the arts. The freedom they have in room 13 allows them to become creative and confident individuals, and independent learners. I think it is a great idea that all schools could benefit from and it shows how important the arts can be in the development of a child.

References

Gibb, C. (2012) Room13: The movement and the International Network. Blackwell Publishing LTD

In this weeks art session we looked at the painting ‘Windows in the West’ by the Scottish artist, Avril Paton. For me this painting always brings back fond memories of when I was younger and enjoyed  going to Kelvin Grove art galleries with my Grandpa, who was an architect and very much encouraged and inspired my in interest in the arts. This particular painting was one that we would always come back to and discuss, it was a favourite of mine in the gallery. Each different window tells its own story and there are so many tiny details, I always found it incredibly interesting. Although the average person only looks at a painting for a few seconds, I always felt this was a painting I could look time and time again and always find something new. “Through the arts we learn to see things we had not noticed, to feel what we had not felt and to employ forms of thinking that are indigenous to the arts” (Eisner, 2002 p.12)

Because of my personal connection with this painting I found it throughly interesting to hear what the artist had to say about the painting herself:

We used inspiration from Windows in the West to create our own prints. We focused on a specific area of the painting in detail, rather than the whole image, and then drew the outline onto polystyrene. By covering the polystyrene in ink we were then able to use this as a stamp to create interesting prints onto coloured paper. We also discussed how different colour combinations of the coloured inks and the coloured paper can give the print a whole new dynamic. I chose to use red and green to give it a christmas feel.

Overall I felt like it was a fairly straightforward task, that was enjoyable and could be integrated into any topic or subject.

References

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of the Mind. Yale University Press/ New Haven & London

Glasgow museums (2011) Avril Paton on “Windows in the West” at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow. [Online] Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVDRL6wsQYU&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 3 January 2017]

This week in art the lesson was about a way to teach perspective. We painted the foreground, middle ground and background on separate pieces of paper and then stuck them together. When we did it we went through each stage at a time without knowing what the final product would look like until it was finished. I think it was better this way, without the teacher showing us a final product first, because this let us use our imagination and creativity rather than subconsciously trying to copy an example.

We learned a lot of techniques that I wouldn’t have thought of, like tearing up the background into strips to create a hill/mountain landscape or putting salt over the water colours to give the sky an interesting pattern.

After looking at everyones final product, they were all very different. They all had the same structure and subject matter, because we had followed the same instructions, but they all had our own unique twist. Some had used bright colours, other had more muted tones, some had made their wall very brick like, some had made it more pebble like. Again i think this was down to us not working from a picture, but instead following instructions and working from our imagination.

I throughly enjoyed this lesson and think it is a great way to teach perspective and depth.

This lesson meets the expressive arts outcome:

“I have the freedom to discover and choose ways to create images and objects using a variety of materials.” EXA 0-02a

In todays art input we discussed how many people think that they cannot draw or think that they cannot do art. When in actual fact, making a simple mark on paper is an art from.

We read part of a story called “The Dot”, which tells the tale of a young girl who thinks she cannot draw until she realises she can make amazing pictures out of simple dots on the paper. It was her teacher who encouraged her to start with one single dot, which then inspired her to create more art work using dots, which then became her own individual style. Here is a video of the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mGeR4AQdM

I think this story made me realise the importance of inspiring children to be adventurous with art and help them to realise that art can be created out of any kind of mark made on paper. It is important to encourage them and make them realise that anyone can be an artist.

We then went on to experimenting with mark making ourselves.We started off by using different toys such as lego dipped in ink to see what kind of prints we could make.

We then went on to dipping parts of our hand in ink and randomly printing them on the paper. We then had to study the marks we had made and turn them into pictures that we saw within the mark. for example, the first mark I made using two fingers and part of my palm and after looking at for a while the shape reminded me of bunny ears, so I turned the image into a habit.

The purpose of this exercise was to show us how an important part of children’s creative process is imagination. According to Eisner  “In the Arts, imagination is given license to fly.” Eisner (2002, p.198)

References

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. London: Yale University Press.

Reynolds, P. (2010) The Dot. [Online] Available: https://youtu.be/t5mGeR4AQdM [Accessed 8 January 2017]

During our first art input we studied different levels of artwork through the primary school. The groups of art work were split up into 3 groups, lower, middle and upper primary. What I found when I studied each group that I was most drawn to the lower primarys work and I think this was because it had the most originality. McAuliffe states “As children become more aware of others art, they can begin to feel particularly self conscious about their work and their own ability in art and design.” McAuliffe, (2007).

Also as they got older it became more apparent that the children had been brainwashed into following a certain structure, painting and drawing the same things, in the same style. We discussed how a lot of the pictures looked as though they had been guided through the piece of work step by step by the teacher or they had been given an initial piece of work by the teacher to copy.

Gibbs states “Where art lessons do exist, they are more often presented as an exercise in following instructions with the entire class diligently following set instructions to produce near-identical pieces of work, all doing their best to copy the teacher’s example; expression, creativity and originality do not come into it.”

Personally I do not think this is a good thing as it does not allow children develop their own artistic style or create work based on their own ideas and experiences. Teachers should be doing more to support children’s individual creativity, rather than making them copy examples to produce replicas.

Fair enough, this approach would get them to understand shape, line, texture etc but it doesn’t allow them to develop their own approach to creating an image. We also discussed as a class how some of these limitations were probably to do with teachers not wanting to take the time to clean up afterwords, it is more convenient for them to use simple methods of art which are quick easy and won’t create mess.

These are two of my favourite pictures from the younger stages in the school.

The first because I feel it is obvious the child has had freedom to create what they wanted. There is no clear structure to it, it looks a lot like experimentation of colour and pattern. I like the second picture because it looks like the child has been able to experiment with texture.

References

Gibb, C. (2012) Room13: The movement and the International Network. Blackwell Publishing LTD

McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and the Primary settings. In: Cox, S., Watts, R., Grahame, J., Herne, S. and MacAuliffe, D. (Eds)  Teaching Art and Design 3-11  London: Continuum