Crowle Primary Pupils Become Aztec Warriors!

Crowle Primary are studying the intriguing and beguiling world of the Aztecs! This week Years three and four came to visit the centre to be inspired by architecture and unusual printing techniques.

 

We started the day with drawing challenges to draw something to do with Aztecs in 20 seconds! This got everyone's creative juices flowing and made us think quickly as little artists for the rest of the day.

 

We took a trip around the gallery spaces to find architectural features that looked to be inspired by Aztec patterns. We thought about geometric shapes and repetition and drew our findings on research sheets.

 

 

Inspired by the drawings, we drew repeated shapes onto a piece of faom that became a relief pad for printing a repeated pattern over and over onto a template of a head dress.

 

We had to draw as many large feathers onto one piece of paper as possible and used these feathers as a stencil for something called screen printing. The screens are made of wood and silk which is pulled tight over the wooden frame. The silk allows ink to be pushed through its tiny tiny holes. Our stencils would make sure that only the feather shapes would be printed, meaning we could make lots of them from one sheet of paper. The feathers were dried, cut and folded to make them more 3D.

Using the foam relief pads, we printed onto the main body of our head dress, using block printing ink which is really bold and colourful. The feathers were attached along with the head of a bird (even though some people thought it was a frog). Aztecs were greatly inspired by nature and things around them. Birds were seen as gods and bird imagery was often used for warrior head dresses, which is why we used them to inspire our work today.

Once all the inks and glue were dry, the head resses could be assembled for us to wear on the bus home. We looked really colourful and bright walking across Church Square.


If you or your school are interested in the team at 20-21 building a bespoke workshop around your class topic, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us: 01724 297070 or email education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

Princesses Knights and Castles

Just before half term, we were delighted to welcome back Burton Primary School and their year 1's who were studying Princesses and Knights in their classrooms.

To get thinking like artists for the day, the children began by taking part in some 20 second drawing tasks, being challenged to think aroudn their topic and draw something they were learning in the classroom, in only 20 seconds. Needless to say, there were a LOT of brilliantly drawn castles!

The children had a tour around the church gallery, looking at the materials used to build our grand old building. We touched the walls to understand the texture of the stone used and get a feel for what it would've been like living as a Princess or Knight in the medieval in stone building with little heating and small windows.

Each class member had a sheet of paper to make notes on the words we used to describe the building.

"bumpy, rough, stone."



"concrete, arch, hard"

We also drew shapes we could see around the building, like the rectangular bricks and pointy arches.



Back in the Education Room, each child had a castle template to make a 3D shape and to decorate it using ideas taken from the words we had used in the gallery space.

Children were given colourful crepe paper that had been cut into squares and rectangles to replicate the bricks used to build 20-21 and other old medieval buildings. Once the building blocks had all been stuck, ensuring we had covered the entire castle, we used unusal packaging materials, dipped in block printing inks, to print textures onto the castle walls. The textures were similar to the ones we had been describing in the gallery: rough looking, bumpy and uneven.

We got really mucky hands from all the ink!

 

 

 The children told us:

"I liced geting mesee"
"I liqd everting"
"Church was old and beautifl"

A HUGE thank you to all the wonderful children from Burton Primary, for being excellently behaved and extremely talented! We had a lovely day with you all and look forward to seeing you again!

If your school would be interested in a Bespoke Workshop, please get in touch with out Education Officer, Hayley McPhun 01724 297070 or education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

Project Willows

At the back end of last year, 20-21 were approached to deliver a session to a group of primary school children, as part of a project, looking at introducing children to new places and for them to meet new people and try out exciting new activities developed especially for them. This pilot project became known as Project Willows; a name decided by the group of children on their first day. Education at 20-21 quickly became the project management for the pilot, taking it in a creative and fun direction.

 

Project Willows was a 12 week programme which started and ended with the childrens' interests at its core. Creative sessions were developed around the theme of gaming and the arts. Children designed characters, costumes, missions and computer games, as well as attending places like Doncaster Race Course and local colleges.

 

There were lots of partners involved to ensure a quality diverse offer. On 10th July 2013, Project Willows sadly came to an end and went out with a bang with a big event and exhibition held at 20-21.

 

Below are some pictures of the sorts of things we got up to at that event!

 

Chloe showed Mr Garbutt around the exhibition, reminding him of all the creative printing techniques they used to make their bright and colourful bags and artworks.



Pupils explained to adults and parents the sorts of activities they got up to during their time on Project Willows. The children made clay sculptures to depict their future aspirations.



Chloe and Reece with their mums, pointing out all the pictures of themselves doing various workshops.



Harry and Owen showed Mr Tinsley around their exhibition. Mr Tinsley came up with the idea for Project Willows and supported each and every decision made, guaranteeing quality in our offer.



Owen telling adults about the fun we had making clay sculptures..



The boys performed their drama piece that was created with Duckegg Theatre Group.



Mr Garbutt being shown the childrens' clay sculptures.
The pupils talked through what sort of jobs they want when they grow up.



Cats - represent one of the pupils wanting to be a vet.

Once everyone had had a bite to eat and seen their glorious exhibition, parents, pupils and adults were taken through to the gallery to watch a short documentary of the children's views of Project Willows. The pcompleted an activity, to decorate a DVD cover so they could take their copy of the documentary home with them.

Everyone was so busy, they didn't realise a famous football manager had arrived!

Brian Laws is the football manager for Scunthorpe United Football Club.
He came along to congratulate us all and present the children with their certificates and medals of achievement.

 

 

 

 

Once the event was over, the children filled their screen printed bags with the clay sculptures, pictures and memories of their time of Project Willows.

Everyone has agreed that Project Willows was a massive success! Education at 20-21 feel honoured and priviledged to have had played a big role in such an exciting pilot project. We look forward tro running bigger and better long-term schemes for schools who are interested in upskilling pupils and introducing them to new experiences.

 

For more information on what took part during Project Willows, or for how to get invovled in future long-term projects, please don't hesitate to contact our Education Ofiicer, Hayley McPhun on 01724 297070 or education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

Burton Primary become Andy Warhol!

Sometimes we get some really interesting requests for workshops, here at 20-21; so when Burton Primary School called with a request for a POP ART themed workshop based around Andy Warhol, we were really excited!

Andy Warhol is one of the most famous artists in the world, whose work continues to inspire creatives, today. His work is instantly recognisable and infiltrates the world of art, fashion and music. Some of the most iconic images and portraits in art were created by Andy Warhol. We used some of these images in our workshop with Burton Primary, last week:


Many of the children already knew who this lady was because of their studies of America, back in school. We spoke about how often we see this sort of portrait of Marilyn Monroe and how famous it is.

Some children thought this was Harry Potter, then insisted it was Daniel Radcliffe!
Our Education Officer explained who this man is and why Warhol may have made this portrait of John Lennon, given his fame at the time.
We spoke about the colours and lines in this picture.

This photo has been brought to people's attention recently, because of a lawsuit between Apple and the band The Velvet Underground. We spoke about how this image is easily recognised as Andy Warhol's work, even if it didn't say his name at the bottom.

It is said that Warhol was a sickly child, whose mother believed that soup would help make him better. The artist became known for recreating these soup can pictures, which soon became one of the most famous images of the pop-art movement.
We spoke about repetition and popular culture when looking at this picture.

Andy Warhol's artwork became so sought after and in high demand, that he opened an art studio called "The Factory", in which he employed many people to create some of the artworks for him. Warhol would surround himself with famous icons and celebrities, whom he would become obsessed with and recreate their images over and over again. He believed that by recreating someone's portrait repeatedly, he was helping to keep them alive, even after they whad died.
We focused themes of repetition, popular culture, colour, line and portraits throughout our Burton Primary workshop, last week. Ensuring that children understood what Warhol's aims were with over saturating the market with repetitive images and iconography.

In an attempt to replicate The Factory, we chose a wall to be our inspiration wall, and filled it with blu-tak. Children were given 20 seconds to draw something they associated with American popular culture and stick it on the wall. Then they were given 20 seconds to write a word they associated with Andy Warhol and stick it to the wall. 20 seconds more and the children had to draw something they associated with pop-art and stick it on the wall. We quickly filled our inspiration wall with all the things we talked about during the morning:

We told the pupils that Andy Warhol coined the term "super star" and that he thought everyone in the world would have their 15 minutes of fame.

Using some of the terminology we learned during the morning, we went to look at an exhibition in 20-21 Visual Arts Centre. Jason Carlisle's portraits, hold similar themes to Andy Warhol's work; repetition, line, colour and portraits.

Children were asked to fill in a worksheet to remind us of the similarities and to get them thinking about the artwork, critically:

Worksheets to one side, we began making our pop-art inspired creations. The pupils measured out four 10cms by 10cms squares and swapped with people around their table to make sure everyone had lots of different colours to stick down:

The artwork was left to dry. After a well earned lunch break, we all sat and carefully drew a picture of the person to our left. The pupils turned out to be excellent observers and very creative at drawing!

The pictures were photocopied and features were cut to create simple jigsaw type portraits of our fellow artists. These jigsaws were used as stencils for screen printing our portriats! The colours we used were so bright and vibrant, we all had to wear sunglasses to look at them!!

It was such a delight to work with Burton Primary School and especially to deliver such an interesting topic! A big thank you to all our helpers and teachers on the day, who made sure everything ran smoothly! A bigger thank you to the Burton Primary pupils who were excellent artists in our Factory on the day!