Newsletter Nine

Issue Nine of our Education at 20-21 Newsletter helps you uncover what we've been up to, exciting news, information on our brand new 20-21 Teachers’ Group and some top notch workshop and exhibition opportunities for you in the new school year!

This has been a really exciting and busy year for us here at Education at 20-21, we've delivered lots of bespoke workshops, run some projects with entire schools, gained a Quality Award from Learning Outside the Classroom Council and developed some fabulous teacher training opportunities. We hope you'll stay in touch for all the excitement planned for the next school year!

We love to hear from schools who are using the arts innovatively in the classroom and across the curriculum. Get in touch and send any photos you'd like us to put into our next newsletter, or onto our blog which features details and pictures of all the schools who engage with Education at 20-21.

For further information on anything that is of interest to you or your school, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01724 297070 or email education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

Burton Primary become Art Superheroes!

Burton Stather Primary year ones returned to 20-21 last week, to prove that they are, indeed, Art Superheroes! Two visits in one year? That's enough qualification for us to strongly believe that this school really value the arts, and their children were very excited to design and make their Art Superhero capes, in honour of that!

 

The day started with some art challenges for the whole group. How quickly can we all become artists? How many pieces of work can we create in one minute? How many objects can we find in our classmates' squiggle drawings?

The answers? We all became artists in a matter for two minutes. We created three pieces of artwork each and we found numerous objects in our squiggles - including a Smurf's hat!

We stuck a load of our quick-fire drawings to the windows, to use as inspiration for creating shapes and pattern later in the day.

Once we had our art head's tightly screwed in place, we took a trip around the gallery, splitting into small groups to complete some worksheets created especially for the class.

Each child chose their favourite piece of artwork out of our current exhibitions; Alison Stockmarr's Face Book as seen above, in our Linear Gallery, with our Gallery Assistant.

George Hardy's Faces (above) were popular because of the sheer talent in using biro as a drawing tool.

And finally Alexis Rago's Chaos Contained which was the favourite of many of the pupils, for it's weird and wonderful sculptures.

The children worked really hard to answer the questions and recreate their findings in the form of a sketch, which encouraged them to think about shape, 3D object and size.

 

 

Here are two of our favourite recreations of Alexis' work:

In the Link Gallery, we spotted Miss Clarkson taking a gallery selfie with some of her pupils! This is something we greatly encourage during visits! Who doesn't love a gallery selfie?!

Back in the education room, it was time to get our designer heads on. We decided who we might be as Art Superheroes, using Paint Girl, Super Splodge and Clay Spray as examples. We discussed what the term "design" means and what a designer might do.

It was explained that designers start with what's called Initial Designs, so the children began there's, thinking of shapes and logos that might represent who they are as Art Superheroes. We drew a lot of paintbrushes, bubble writing and lumps of clay, like in Alexis' work.

The initial designs, were then perfected on a second drawing, using larger, simpler shapes. These were to cut out to use as stencils for our screen printing.

Burton's year ones got to use some of 20-21's specialist equipment; our silk screens! The pupils learned what a silk screen was and what it might be used for. We used them to recreate our designs into Art Superhero capes, with our logos on the back!

Some designs worked better than others, as unfortunately, some children got a little carried away with the clean up, resulting in some of the papers being thrown in the bin. However, we think they look really abstract and unusual.

The paintbrushes look really striking!

And the lines came out crisp, framing the designs really nicely.

 

 

All in all, everyone seemed to have a great day, giving us more evidence that Art Superheroes is still one of our most popular workshops to book. Get in touch with ways we can drop in your class topic, and prove that your school are Art Superheroes, too!

 

 

For more information, contact us on 01724 297070 or email education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

Alexis Rago Making the Complex Simple - Teacher Training event

You may remember our Education Officer hounding teachers and schools to attend a truly unique teacher training session with one of our exhibiting artists, Alexis Rago. Well, here are some fabulous photos and descriptions of how the day panned out.

We began with an artist led tour around his exhibition, to gain a better understanding of how Alexis' creative output communicates with his audience.

Alexis' exhibition Chaos Contained uses clay and repeated shapes patterns and symmetry, to introduce us to chaos theory.  The work is exquisite and looks beautiful in the Chancel Gallery, with all the original church windows and features.

 

Back in the Education Room, Alexis spoke of his journey through the arts, as a student, as a practising artist and as an artist who teaches.  It was a very interesting introduction to how an artist would start their life and career path.

An example of fired clay, which we were to all recreate using well practised techniques and clay rolling skills.

At each stage, Alexis pointed out ways in which these skills can be embedded in the classroom, continually reminding us of how a child's brain may work a lot simply than we remember as adults.
Once a shape is simplified, we notice that all 3D shapes derive from a sphere, even large pointy cones.  

Combining the shapes we'd made, teachers were then given the chance to decorate their creations. It was important for teachers to notice the marks made by various tools.

Once delegates had completed their star fish, we moved on to use a different clay; one we used to make ourselves a pinch pot.

The careful hand movements were difficult to master and reminded us how it felt to have to learn new muscle movements with having no experience. It was reassuring to know that each of us felt the need to concentrate, as the skill didn't come naturally.

Some of the final outcomes were really interesting, as each individual had a different take and understanding of the material. This is a quality we often forget as teachers, that children have their own individual vision and interpretation of a materials and their chosen outcome. This is something that we should perhaps celebrate and nurture more in our pupils, which was something discussed around the table.

"[The delivery of the session was] very information and practical. Good teaching of skills that can be used to teach the children." - KS1 teacher

"Clear step-by-step instructions. It was friendly, relaxed, clear and interesting. It was a great session with good transferable skills." - KS3 teacher

"I will be sharing this with staff in school!" - KS2 teacher

Overall, the afternoon gave the teachers a chance to work directly with an artist to better understand a material used year in year out in every classroom.

Alexis' exhibition Chaos Contained will be on display in the gallery until the end of Summer Term, meaning there is ample opportunity to take advantage of Self Guided Tours, Guided Tours or booking a related workshop, so your pupils can learn from the skills passed on by Alexis.

To book any of the above mentioned, please contact our Education Officer on 01724 297070 or email education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk