Secret Diary Sculptures

My Learner Centre was recently granted a budget for the library and so we were throwing out a lot of old books. I seized on a few of them and thought about how I could recycle them into some kind of art project. As the books I'd acquired were quite chunky, I wanted students to do something with them that would keep that sense of three dimensional physicality. For some reason, my mind wandered back to the 'secret diaries' I used to keep as a child, where I'd cut away a section from the inside of a book and hide stuff inside.

I discussed this idea with my students and found that a few of them had done similar things with old books. They really loved the idea of altering unwanted books and turning them into some sort of sculpture. After carefully cutting out a section of the book with craft knives, the young people grabbed hold of PVA, tempera paint, clay, oil pastels and fabric scraps to produce these amazing pieces of work!

Organic Forms Clay Sculpture

For one of the year's final projects, students turned their attention to the natural world and made these stunning clay sculptures. Young people took their inspiration by fungi, leaves, flowers, berries and other natural forms. In my experience, students always greatly enjoy the physicality of clay work. It can be very satisfying to manipulate the clay into the desired form.

The finished pieces were each displayed on a tree trunk base, next to our beautiful stained glass windows. This is always one of my favourite spots for exhibiting three dimensional work.

Slogan Stencilling

Students worked really hard to create these multi-part stencil designs. Each young person thought up their own positive slogan or affirmation and then used a craft knife to cut a stencil into cardboard. The students worked in tempera paint and used sponges to stencil their affirmations on to paper. Students used sponges to dab the paint on, which left  a visual texture similar to spray paint. This added to the slogans' graffiti-like feel.

Journal Article

I'm really honoured to say that an article of mine has been published in the Independent School Association's April 2016 journal! The piece, which reflects on the various challenges and rewards of teaching art at Red Balloon can be read in full here.

Giant Exquisite Corpses

The exquisite corpse is a collaborative drawing method first advocated by the surrealists; many of us will remember it from childhood as 'the drawing game' or 'fold over drawings.' My students worked in groups to make some gigantic exquisite corpses that now loom large around the corridors of our centre.

A few of my Art teacher friends were really interested to see these giant exquisite corpses, so here they are! I find that the large scale works really well for this activity; bigger surfaces seem to allow for greater freedom of expression.

If you're planning a unit on surrealism, this activity can easily be combined with or followed up by my lessons on Dali and Max Ernst.

Wire Mesh Heads

Some students really enjoyed the drawing with wire lesson and asked for an extension project using the same materials and techniques. Students worked in wire mesh, tinfoil. pipe cleaners and coloured paper to produce these great results!

Summer Day and Winter Night

As the year rolls on, we see the seasons change around us. Each one has its own trademark visual elements; the brown, fallen leaves of autumn, the dark nights and snow flakes of winter, the budding blossoms of spring, and the clear blue skies of summer. With this in mind, I set about planning a lesson that would highlight the visual drama of different seasons by contrasting two against each other.

Students were given the instruction to draw and paint a landscape half in summer and half in winter. They divided their landscape page with a diagonal line, keeping the summer elements on one side and the winter elements on the other. Once drawn, these landscapes were painted with tempera paint and then a few extra details were added with wax crayon.