Grange Lane Infants are Art Superheroes!

Last week was a VERY busy here at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre! We had almost 60 of Grange Lane Infants' year threes and fours visit us for the whole day on Wednesday.

They were here to look at David Hancock's Cosplay exhibition, which features lots of people dressed as characters, who David photographs and later paints or draws into these exquisite pieces of art work.

 

 

Pupils spent quite some time in the galleries answering questions about the exhibition, to get them thinking about how artists operate; the tools they use, why they might want to be making this artwork.

 

 

 

We paid a lot of attention to the design of the costumes that the characters were wearing, as we were about to embark on creating our very own Superheroes!

 

Back in the Education Room, children thought of themselves as Art Superheroes, stepping in to save art in Scunthorpe. We came up with some really great super hero names that had special powers, like invisibility, the power of electricity and laser eyes that destroyed our enemies in their tracks.

 

We put some of these words and super powers into drawings, making us think creatively around our characters. Apologies for the bad quality of these pictures, our lovely camera wasn't available on the day.

Once we had in mind what our character would be like and act like, we started putting together some logo designs for our Art Superhero capes. The logos had to be simple, effective and bold in their shapes.

 

The logos were the turned into stencils for the screen printing techniques, which is why the shapes had to be large so they were easy to cut.

 

The stencils were used for silk screen printing which is a really special way to reproduce an image.

 

Our final capes were so bright and colourful that the Education Officer had to wear sunglasses while taking the following pictures!

 

 

We are really pleased with the final result! If you or your school would like to become Arts Superheroes for the day, please get in touch with the centre on 01724 297070, or email our Education Officer on education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

 

 



 

 

 

 



Art Superheroes!

Scunthorpe Church of England Primary School saved the day last week! We had an unfortunate cancellation with another school, but had already done lots of preparations and were drumming up a lot of excitement in the building, so needed a replacement school stat!

 

Step in our Superheroes in the shape of  Scunthorpe Church of England Primary's year six pupils! 27 pupils descended on the centre and used their special creative powers to design and make some of the most colourful superhero capes we've ever seen!

 

The afternoon started with us all coming up with as many words as we could think of, associated with Superheroes. Then we were challenged to draw one of the words, in 30 seconds! Super drawings skills!

 

Once our super creative juices were flowing, we visited the Judge Dredd exhibition, which features loads of comic heroes. We studied the shapes and recuring patterns of their logos and symbols. This is Hayley, the Education Officer, demonstrating what Judge Dredd's helmet looks like:

We spent a lot of time sketching and carefully observing how comic artists make stories through drawing.

Back in the Education Room, we used the Judge Dredd exhibition as inspiration for designing ourselves as superheroes. Each pupil had to think of their super powers, who their arch nemesis might be and what our logos would look like.

These logos were then drawn as big as we could make them, and cut out to create a stencil for printing.

Hayley helped us to make solid shapes, like stars, hearts and sheilds.

Then for the messy bit (it got so messy that there isn't much photo documentation of the actuakl process because we were all so busy cleaning up and printing!), to screen print our logos onto the specially made capes. The fabric we used was all floaty and light so when we run around with our capes on, we look like we are flying!

We had loads of fun with our friends

Our capes had to be left behind to dry, meaning 20-21 could get some quick photos before we were reunited with our super creations!

 

 

With the current climate regards attitudes to arts education at a low ebb, this workshop was a lovely opportunity to have children leave feeling fulfilled knowing they are creative, unique and that art makes them powerful individuals.

 

Education at 20-21 would love to deliver this workshop more often and are looking to have it embedded as a core offer for next year.

 

Get in tough if you have a class full of Art Superheroes who need some snazzy capes!

 

20-21 would like to give a HUGE Superhero thank you to Scunthorpe Church of England for stepping in so last minute and another HUGE Superhero thank you to Lee Beel, to photographed the day's events, which means we now have some snazzy images to use all over our website!

Alkborough Primary's Popping Portraits

This Wednesday found 20-21 Visual Arts Centre plunged into darkness as our power lines went down. A minor panic ensued as we realised we had 20 year one and two pupils on their way from Alkborough Primary School for a full day workshop.

As flexible and spontaneous as we boast to be, this one had us thinking on our toes and we decided to run the workshop back at the school, to make sure we could operate safely and the children would still get maximum experience.

So... back on the bus and back to the school we went, so we could learn about Andy Warhol and make our very own Popping Portraits of ourselves and classmates, just like Burton Primary a few months ago.

Children got to learn the proportions on drawing portraits and made some fabulous pictures of their classmates. We used these portraits to make stencils and cut holes for transferring ink through during the screen printing stage.

The class got to use our specialist printing equipment, just like what Andy Warhol would have used in the 60's. This was very exciting and made some really interesting results.

Because of the rush, Education at 20-21 unfortunately didn't manage to get any photographs of the fun we had, but we did get some lovely feedback from the children:

"It was fantastic because we lent thins abowt portets."
"I loved it so much."
"I really liked the trip because it was at school"


For further details on our Popping Portraits workshop and other offers from Education, get in touch with our Education Officer: 01724 297070 or education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk or take a look at our Education Offer page on this blog.

Eastfield Primary Project

A few months ago Eastfield Primary School contacted Education at 20-21 to request a bespoke project that would up skill teaching staff and inspire them to confidently embed arts throughout the curriculum. In the past Eastfield have worked with local artist Wendy Chan, who was brought in to help develop and deliver the project. 

The whole school are studying Tomb Raiders, looking at Egyptians, ancient artifacts and the histories uncovered by great explorers. An engaging topic to incorporate the arts!

15 members of staff came along to a teacher training day that spilled out into the cafe area, and saw the teacher's make books, print illustrations and take part in shadow puppetry demonstrations.

In the morning the group split into two and were taught different book binds and print techniques and how they could be used in the Tomb Raider topic as well as throughout the curriculum. Once binds and techniques were mastered, the teachers halved once more and taught the other group their book binding technique. This meant that teachers had the chance to remind themselves how the book structures worked, as well as realise how it could be taught to others in the classroom.

Egyptian imagery adorns a flag bound book cover

Flag binds with monoprinted images

Recognising the varying levels of success in mono printing and realising what issues may have occurred.

Lots of cutting, sticking and chatting about how it can be adapted to suit different year groups.

Working with artist, Wendy Chan to create screen printed tote bags to carry their creations home.

Using a basic stencil technique, the screen prints came out really crisp and sharp.

The day was one of inspiration, realisation and creativity; giving teachers a chance to explore their topic through the arts. It was important for teachers to have a thinking space and see how these workshops can be carried on into the classroom. Below are some quotes directly from the teachers about the day's activities:

"I'm looking forward to working with the artists in school."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the day, would like to have more of them!"
"The delivery was very good, very informative and gave lots of inspiration and ideas"
"Fantastic and enthusiastic leaders running the workshops."
"Delivery was fun, entertaining and light hearted. The leaders instilled confidence!"

The Eastfield project is the first time 20-21 have run a school-wide project that up skills teachers to deliver arts confidently in the classroom. Later in the year, Wendy and Hayley will be delivering workshops in the school, to ensure further embedding of arts throughout the curriculum. Follow the project on this blog or for more information on how 20-21 can deliver a similar project in your school/college, please get in touch with our Education Officer, Hayley McPhun, on 01724 297074 or hayley.mcphun@northlincs.gov.uk