No Ordinary Time-Machine

I love looking at the work of other artists; I find it inspiring and motivating. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the children, but the challenge was to introduce a piece of artwork in such a way that they will create an original artistic response, rather than just 'copy'.

I knew that storytelling was a big hit with the class, so I came up with a story involving 'time-travel' or rather 'Work-Of-Art-Travel'. 

I chose a couple of paintings by one of my favourite local artists, Paul Johnstone. These paintings are bright and colourful with a 'garden' or 'wild-spaces' theme that I thought would appeal to the children and be open- ended enough to allow for imaginative improvisation. I also took in some flowers and plants from my garden at home to add an extra dimension to the 'travelling'.

Imagine, if you can, that this hall is no ordinary school hall. This hall is actually a powerful machine that can take us on a journey. Today, we are going to use the machine to travel to the inside of a painting.

Paintings by Paul Johnstone

We need to work together. We need to use our imaginations to power the machine. 

What can we see?
What can we touch?
What can we smell?
What can we hear?
How do we feel?

I asked the children to think of a sentence that reminded them of their travels and write it down. This would form the basis of a narrative for their work- a focus point. I then asked the children not to paint the objects they imagined, but to paint how they felt and to think carefully about the colours they used and how they made their marks. 

Below, are the children's original artistic responses to Paul Johnstone's work. As they delved into their imaginations, some children used a card to drag the acrylic paint across the page, slowly or quickly, depending on the strength of wind. Some children made fast taps with a brush, representing fish and falling rain. Gorgeous texture was etched into the work, scratching into the surface, revealing the paper underneath. Paint was drilled and twisted into the page, how far can you push? Waterfalls were imagined. Birds, ducks and even a 'soil-burglar' were painted into existence. Each piece of work is different, and evocative of the wild-spaces they 'travelled' to. Nobody copied the original paintings.

As it groo darker you couldn't see anything

The wind was bloing my face

The sun shines briety

It was colorful and peasful

The fish is jumping in th water

The wind bloow in my hair

A man defends his land from a 'soil burglar' who wants to steal soil to build a house

The garden was silant and beutiful

Can you spot the duck?

It was silant and peasful

Water falls flood sweeping water

It is very colourful and sunny

In the garden there are lots of flowers

I could hear the birds singing

It was so colorful

The sun shon in my face. Bright flowers are shining.

The garden is full of flowers

Into the Labyrinth with Clay, Beads and Wire

After noticing how much the children enjoyed the 'gluing and sticking'- the 'making' with actual tactile materials in their hands, I thought about how much they'd enjoy clay. As I am not very experienced with clay, I did a bit of research and this session was actually inspired by a blog post on An Everyday Story- 'Using clay: bead and wire sculptures'. I loved the idea of adding these 'loose-parts' to the clay which would allow for plenty of creativity and discovery.

In the post, the author mentions 'bead-coasters' or 'bead-mazes'. This led me onto procrastinating about mazes in general, and how much wonder they tend to stir up in children. I used to love going to those hedge-mazes at stately homes and imagining I was in all sorts of worlds.

I wanted to start the session with a story. Stories seem to be such a great bridge into the 'creative zone', springing imaginations into life. I was reminded of the Greek Myth- 'Ariadne's Thread' which is about a Minotaur waiting for sacrifices in the depths of a tangled maze, and the brave soldier who finally slays him, but I thought it was too scary and complicated to read to the children. 

However, my mind kept wondering back to this maze of tangled passages, so I re-wrote the myth, leaving out the parts about Poseidon and his white bull, and glossing over the parts about 'sacrifices', instead concentrating on how Ariadne helped Theseus escape the labyrinth with a ball of red thread.

Clutching his red thread, Theseus delved deeper and deeper into the maze. The labyrinth was dark, and there were many different paths he could choose from. Some routes were very narrow and he had to squeeze his way through. Others were so overgrown with thorns and brambles that he had to cut his way through with his sword.

After I finished telling the tale (whilst clutching my real ball of red thread), I gave each child a ball of clay and pointed out the piles of beads and wire on the table. My photography doesn't do these justice, but this is what they made:

'This is the red thread from the story to help you get out'

I love how this child made the beads leave textured paths to where they sit.

'How can I balance this (the pine cone) on top of this (wire form)?'