Arty Crafts

Arty Crafts

PRINTING In the holidays I work at a holiday club in Cambridge "Arty Crafts'. There are normally 3 young adult helpers for the 38-40 children aged 5-12. Other than the extremely long days it really doesn't feel like a job. I have a lot of fun, meet other helpers who are also interested in art and get to create lots of crafts with children who also really enjoy art.

Today we were print-making. As we do whenever creating a final piece you sketch ideas around a given theme (animals), then turn them into compositions and then prints. It is interesting how this is something that is fundamental to image making, even for young children.

A 5 year old girls swordfish and 7 year old boys peacock. This 7 year old has come to this club many times and it has been really interesting to see his development. He now understands the tasks a lot better and has become a lot more independent. He is also taking more time in his drawings (hence that he didn't finish his initial sketch) but everything is in proportion and representational.

This is some observational drawings I did of some of the children whilst they were busy at work doing quiet drawing. Its quite difficult doing when children are around as you have to hold a conversation whilst concentrating and you can't draw on a table because the children can't sit still and have no appreciation of space haha. Furthermore all of the "models" were moving around like crazy which made it even more difficult. I didn't sketch out anything before starting and started off with the hair and building up the hair through appropriate use of line. I feel that hair is an important feature of capturing a person recognisably. The kids were enjoying trying to guess who the people were. They aren't exactly perfect drawings of the specific children but they are representative and out of the other people on the table it was obvious who I was drawing, however some of the children guessed names that were waaaaay off which was quite amusing to notice.

 This is the leaders Toms (Circle line art school) example.

They were all given pieces of Polystyrene and had to draw their designs onto them. This was harder than it seemed. It only worked if you drew the lines one way, the other way is all stuttery and almost ripped the block. 

Me and another were left to print all 38 kids work. This was stressful chaos lasting an hour and a half. The nature of the Polystyrene meant that it absorbed the ink, therefore you had to coat many layers and also roll it thicker than you would any other types of printing. Also we rolled the ink out onto paper and this was very wasteful and dried quickly, however it was more practical for the environment we were in.

 It is a really difficult thing, catering for a 7 year age gap when setting tasks but even more so at this age where the children develop so rapidly. They all interpret the artwork at their own level but also the younger ones require a lot of help, sometimes every stage of the was with complex things.

I think that these pieces are really interesting. They haven't got to grips with composition and the use of space and scale yet. They also have limited ability to communicate what they imagine in their head so only the most important features are portrayed but not quite correctly. Therefore making the images representational but not accurate. Maybe I could learn from this in order to make my work as full of character as these.
However it was funny when I went to talk to 2 girls because they were drawing snails and said that they drew the image small because snails are small. I then had to tell them to imagine that they were looking at it through a microscope so that the lines would be far enough apart to scratch out.

DRAWING

An exercise the children completed today was drawing bowls and cups to look 3D and with shading from the correct side to try and create something which looks life like. Tom specifically showed the children that although a cup has a flat bottom, when it is on the table it has a curved edge.

 This caused a few tears from the 6 and 7 year olds because they wanted to create things to look realistic but they were struggling because they don't have full control over their hands, especially when it came to drawing ovals.

This is my version of the image we were tasked to create. I found it easiest helping my group by taking everyone through, step by step, as it would help the younger ones not get lost/left behind.

 Also because they are children, a great motivation is making things seem less real and more fun. Here the tutor suggested changing the scale by adding ladders and ants.

This 7 year old boy wanted also wanted to add shadow (even the handle of the jug). He even managed to get darker lines in the front of the cylinders which helps show form better.

This guy wanted to have fun with the ants and was getting very excitable over an ant take over! He was upset because he said he wasn't pressing hard with the pencil but he still couldn't rub it out. He also is beginning to understand tonal variation and shading.

 This guy is a bit older, 9 and he took his own slant on the creativity. He has a good understanding of the task and must have been here before because he has the shading chart drilled into his system. I think it has turned into quite a cool illustration of towering objects next to the street.

This was a task I did with a 7 year old boy in the afternoon. We needed to fill the time with something and he didn't know what to draw. I drew a squiggle and he had to draw an animal out of it. When I drew the lines I had an idea of what animal it could be turned into but he never drew the same one as was in my head. Sometimes he knew straight away! I think this is a really good character design exercise and these animals are full of character and personality. The shapes of the lines also forced him to consider body language and expression and I think he did extremely well, probably better than I could do...

 I then did the same exercise with a 5 year old girl however she just wanted to do "things" rather than animals. Again this was fascinating. I drew the lines with an object in mind and she created absolutely random bizarre things. The first line I drew was a curved squiggle and she continued this on into a staircase with a man walking up it. Then I drew some zigzags and she turned that into lightning hitting a tree! I then drew a semi-circle and she drew an island! I then drew another shape and she turned it into her name. She is fascinated with writing her name and filled up a whole page practicing one time. I also drew another curved line and she turned this into a box which was holding the "important shapes". 

I am really fascinated with children's creativity and imagination. It would be sooo interesting to understand their thought processes, there must be something linked with their upbringing and experiences?

This was a drawing that a 6 year old boy sat down and drew when they had some free making time. He just said he wanted to draw a comic. Maybe there is a young illustrator in our midst.

 I think this bow and arrow illustration is great. It is really fun and really captures movement. The onomatopoeia and lines around the outside really create the noise. It uses really simple imagery but tells a story effectively.

He then progressed to a longer "comic" which illustrates the earth bumping into the sun, having an argument but then becoming friends and working together. I think this is such a lovely yet random idea. He has really turned the earth and sun into characters through the use of expression. When I asked him what was going on he originally hadn't coloured everything in but himself got confused when explaining it to me so added colour and was chuffed with it. I asked if the earth was getting smaller and thats what the arrows meant and he said "no Alex, the arrows mean that it is moving towards the sun".