In this mornings lecture we discussed Room 13. Room 13 studios facilitate the work of young artists but adults can also use this space to be creative. It was first set up by a group of young artists who ran the studio as a business. Room 13 helped towards constructing CFE. “Room 13 offers young people a platform from which to speak” (Gibb, 2012) This in turn gives young people confidence to speak about their learning and how they are able to be creative.
During today’s art workshop we started off by using a stick and some materials to create our own paint brush. This was quite interesting as it was good to be creative and think about what materials would work well to be able to paint and also hold the brush together. To start off the painting we put a border on our A3 paper which meant that we had a space to paint within. The lecturer then described a Scottish highland scene to us. Examples of some of the things said were the upper third of the painting was the sky which looked cloudy, dull, grey and blue. There is a strip of mountains that rise up higher on the left than on the right. We then used this description to paint the picture using the paint brush that we had created ourselves. This is a very useful way of doing art as it allows the person to be creative as they have an image in their head of what the description looks like and how they will paint it. This means that when using this method in the classroom that every pupils’ work does not end up looking the same. Also, this means that the pupils have a starting point to work with which is useful as they will not feel confused on what to paint as they have had guidance on what the painting is supposed to look like. I found this to be a positive experience as it was interesting to see how the painting turned out in the end as I only had the brush I had created myself to use. I found it quite challenging at times as I had to be careful what parts of the brush that I dipped into the paint so that the colours all didn’t merge together on the painting. In the classroom this type of art lesson could be related to other parts of the curriculum like the topic that the pupils could be working on. For example a topic about Scotland or another country.
In today’s drama workshop we looked as using monologue and voices in head. This was useful as it allows the person to put themselves into the characters perspective and think about how they could be feeling. The topics we looked at were the Holocaust, Grenfell tower and immigration. These topics are useful to cover in the classroom when looking at history and world issues as you could incorporate drama into a part of the lesson to make it more engaging for some pupils. This means that I would be able to integrate different parts of the curriculum together to enhance the pupils’ learning. An experience and outcome that I felt related to this drama workshop is ” In response to variety of stimuli, I can use my characterisation to create characters using different approaches, making use of voice, movement and language. I can present my work to an audience.” EXA 4-13a.(Scottish Government, n.d). This is a good experience and outcome as the pupils could be given the stimuli of the Holocaust, especially if it relates to their current topic, and use their voice through monologue to describe and portray how the characters may be feeling. The pupils could also create a performance relating to the topic that they have been working on. This could be shown to other classes in the school or even the pupils’ parents or carers to demonstrate what they had been learning about.
The art workshop and the drama workshop linked together as both of the aspects of the arts that we were shown today could be linked to other parts of the curriculum to aid the pupils learning whilst integrating two different areas of the curriculum together
References:
Scottish Government, n.d. Curriculum for excellence: expressive arts experiences and outcomes. Assessed online. Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf
Gibb, C. 2012. Room 13: The movement and International Network. NSEAD/Blackwell Publshing Ltd.
