An End Has A Start

Image making workshops at Newark Hill Primary

19.3.14

Perhaps my last session in the classroom with my year 6 group at NHPS and this week our approach took a different tack, with design playing the central role.

I began the workshop by showing a selection of images on my MacBook of the drawings produced during the past few weeks, then I asked the children to imagine these drawings on a completely different scale. Rather than 30cm x 42cm, to think of them being 30′ x 42′. Next I suggested they should consider these previously drawn images as the basic ingredients for a design which would be reproduced on a monumental scale, as a mural. To help them envisage this process I showed some examples of my own work; scribbled ideas in pencil for mural projects which were then modified, revamped and refined using colour, followed by an illustration of the end product.

Using pencils and pencil crayons the challenge today was to produce ideas for a basic composition for a mural which would be painted to celebrate the school becoming an academy. It was not intended that the mural would necessarily be based on the design of one child but that elements suggested by the group as a whole would be recomposed to form the final painting.

A very loose and energetic approach was encouraged, the emphasis being the production of ideas rather than accurate drawing. Likewise colour was applied in the same liberal manner. Speed was key in order to stimulate a quick rather than laboured thought process.

In a perfect world the painting would be completed in time to be unveiled on the actual date when the school will become Newark Hill Academy, on 1st April, however an outdoor project has several factors to take into account, especially at this time of the year. A very wet period has delayed preparation of the wall and recent mild weather was much needed in order that the foundation priming coat could be applied to a dry surface. Conditions for working outdoors in Spring are hit and miss, but I would prefer the painting stage of the project to be an enjoyable experience for the children. Even with this recent relatively settled spell one can be lulled into a false sense of security. My mother would say, ‘March – in like a lamb, will roar out like a lion!’ and like many old sayings she recounts, they often ring true. The weather has the final word, so a delay to the preferred completion date is understandable.

Regardless, the subject for the painting has been successfully explored in a number of workshops over the past few weeks, and the children have suggested elements to be included in the layout. We have not reached the end yet, but the end has a start.

The actual painting may not have begun but if the children had their own mural, they would look like this…………….