Three dimensional representation...

Last term & this term has been tricky planning lessons. I have a few children who have come to a class virtually every week for the last two years &, despite all being 4 or under, are now really good at drawing & painting. In the same classes as those who have progressed so far I have children who have just started, one of whom is as young as 19 months old.

Typically this term & next I concentrate on the concept of 3 dimensional representation & how colour can play such a vital role in a painting. Enjoyable on different levels by the children & interesting for the Mums to think about how Artists represent concepts. I have had to think of numerous levels this term for all the different levels of ability & consequently slightly different activities to be undertaken at the same time. It has made me re-examine my drawings & paintings. I have found myself looking back at still life & I have enjoyed the sculptural nature of drawing with charcoal. The really strange thing, however, was what I noticed when putting the more experienced children's work away to dry over the last couple of weeks..... putting it on the drying rack in my studio next to my own work which I have been working on for the last few months - there was a similarity.....

"Good grief!"
I had almost forgotten about this! I must come back to it when I am more inspired....

It has been 2 months & 2 days since I last Blogged......

Not sure whether that has been a good thing or not. I still haven't worked out when anyone gets the time to Blog.

The last few days I have been frantically trying to revamp my website which has reminded me why I haven't been able to paint properly since having children. The amount of head space taken up by creative pursuits does not allow for anything else. I got up at 5.30 am yesterday morning, sat down surrounded by colouring in pens, paper & laptop. DH took boys to school & I was in another world until my phone beeped at me to remind me it was picking up time! The boys had nachos with re-fried beans, guacamole, tomato salsa, creme friache & grated cheese (all out of packets / pots scrabbled from the cupboard & fridge) for tea last night; from the look on their faces I felt as though I had just served up mud.

A couple of highlights from the last couple of months has been spending time doing things with my sons. My oldest goes to a fantastic Beavers Unit, all run by lovely volunteers who had the other week arranged The Zoo that Comes to You to come along to their Beavers meeting. This was the 3rd or 4th such animal show which I have seen & it just totally surpassed all others! The genuine commitment to their animals & enthusiasm for what they do made for such a special show, it was truly fantastic!  My sons where captivated throughout & learnt so much. My oldest afterwards said "well that was so much better than anything else I have seen! They even linked all the animals together rather than just doing random animals". You can't get much past children!

The other great thing - again run by amazing volunteers - was taking my youngest to Nature Club. In the space of just about 1 metre square on Wimbledon Common we forayed 20 different types of fungi & also found Lichen which apparently can only be found where the air is very clean; so those walks on the Common are doing us even more good than I realised!






If you have a mo' please look at my little creative pursuit & feedback on my website........wrap up warm, it is cold!

http://www.ivaluethearts.org.uk

Information about this website has just landed in my inbox. It has me all fired up & reminds me of my first teaching post at a school not renowned for placing value on the arts, namely because most teachers were through necessity more preoccupied with preventing fights.

I used to give my G.C.S.E. groups the option of either doing their art work with wholehearted enjoyment or practising their handwriting. The piece which I used to give them to copy out repeatedly until they submitted to paying attention to their art lesson was Harold Rosenberg's The De Definition of Art, which if my memory serves me correctly goes: "Art is the one vocation which keeps a space open for the individual to realise themselves in knowing themselves. A society which lacks the presence of self developing individuals having just passive people being acted upon by their environment hardly deserves to be called a Human Society. It is the greatness of Art that it does not permit us to forget this". Highest ever percentage pass rate the school had had!

I passionately believe that statement & for some youngsters being empowered by Art is the only way out of a dead end life with few prospects. For more fortunate youngsters Art empowers them to challenge the norm, to question & to experience different ideas. Very few problems in life, business & society have ever been solved without someone thinking out of the box - applying a bit of creative thought.

Visit http://www.ivaluethe arts.org.uk & pledge your support.