Large pencil drawing heads - Art Skills Club - Letchworth Art Centre

Large pencil drawing heads - Art Skills Club - Letchworth Art Centre - Spring Term 2012

At the Art Skills Club at Letchworth Art Centre, I try and get the students to work with all sorts of media, ways of making images and different sizes in scale. This session was making large scale pencil drawings of heads. Some of which were Manga based, some more realistic and looking at self-portrait, whilst others were in a cartoon style. many of the students hadn't worked on A1 size paper before, and we did a practice session before this of quick and fast pencil mark making to get the students loosened up before working this size. many of the students liked the space to work with, the freedom it gave them and the sense of boldness that they could achieve with more paper to hand, others however were completely spooked by it and stuck to drawing a small image right in the centre of the paper. it was very interesting to see how the paper made them feel.

Summer School - making an Alphabet Banner - Stonehill School, Letchworth

Waiting to be be sewn together, this is the painted banner made by pupils at Stonehill School, Letchworth, during a two morning summer school banner making workshop.  The banner is intended to hang in the front foyer. The banner is an alphabet banner - but this is no A for Aardvark banner - some of the animals were unusual - C is for Cyclops Shark! It was up to the children to pick the animals that they wanted top feature. The students varied in ability, so at times I drew outlines for the children to work inside, and other paintings were made by just the students designing each square. Paints used were high quality acrylic paints onto a twill cotton material along with a small amount of household emulsion.The strips featured here will be sewn together to form the banner with the patterned edging added as the finishing touch.

Sticky backed plastic - plastic "paintings" Summer term - Stonehill School Art Club

Stonehill School - Art Club Summer Term 2012

These photos are the work of the students that come to my art club at Stonehill School in Letchworth. These works are made with high quality, sign writers' sticky backed plastic - collaged onto foam board sheets to made plastic "paintings". Students worked freely with the plastic, cutting into it to make forms, shapes and patterns.  They used pencils to draw on the paper back backing sometimes, but mainly worked straight into the plastic.They hadn't ever used this material, so it was a very different experience for them. They loved the immediacy of working with the plastic, that the strong colour is just ready to use and stick instantly. It took a little bit of time for the children to master laying the plastic smoothly without too many lumps and creases. These pieces were made over three one hour sessions.