I'm Loving Angels In...Crewe

A couple of weeks ago I went to Springfield Special School in Crewe to help some of the Juniors make some giant angels for their Christmas performances.
Here were the plans:

With my two wonderfully helpful helpers, we split the group in two and had them each work on a different angel. The children did all of the design work, then painted their designs onto large pieces of cloth.

They were happy painting away which left us to dish out paint and clean up the mess they made!

After a hard day's work the children went home and I attached the painted sheets to the pre-made frames, and popped a light inside each one to give them an ethereal glow.

Result: two big, colourful angels for Springfield School.

Murals from Sierra Leone

Springfield Junior School in Ipswich wanted four murals based on life in Sierra Leone. So after some consultation with the Head Teacher, and clear instructions to include a barracuda at any cost (he was a little obsessed!), I spent a weekend sketching these four mockups:

The school is twinned with a school in Sierra Leone. They are raising money for a well, and wanted something to reflect four aspects of life in the country: a shanty town, the school, a jungle replete with Sierra Leonean animals, and a tropical beach.

We worked with groups of four at a time. Slowly building up the background, midground, and foreground layers...

...before carefully working in the details.

In the end we worked with almost all of Y4, 5, and 6 over the five days. And I have to say that they did brilliantly.

The murals had a designated place in the Y6 corridor, so I got out the power tools and we stuck them up:

Life in plastic, it's fantastic!

Finished on the 16th October, this project at Southfields Community Primary School in Coventry was our first foray into the complex and remarkable world of plastic casting.To show the kids the dangerous chemicals that we'd be using to cast their mini masterpieces we set up our lab outside.

Then we went into each class (R, Y1, Y2) and did some relief work and random Matisee-inspired-shape-cutting-out to produce the inserts that would go inside each of the 140 resin blocks.

With all of the inserts completed, and a design for a giant WELCOME to be embedded into the

blocks approved by head teacher Paul, the Big Art People holed up in the lab for the next few days to work their alchemical wonders.

The blocks were left to set, then placed in the ground and put to bed over the weekend whilst the

adhesive beneath them and the varnish on top of them, cured.

And here are the results (shown with the original plan)!

They're so shiny that it's difficult to do them justice in a photo. You'll just have to trust that they look brilliant when viewed with the naked eye!

Join the Quest!

Our summer of craft workshops continues this and next week in seven South Staffs libraries.

Here's a few pictures from Codsall and Perton.

We've been making some Ben 10 alien watches...

...and, as ever, those brilliantly tall and colourful headdresses!

We've got 6 more days of this, then it's down to Bedfordshire for some rainforest-themed drumming sessions at the Children's University. Busy busy busy.

Jim

Crafts in Coventry #2

As promised, here are a few photos from today's workshop with KS2.

They made storybooks...

...and headdresses...

...and everyone had a great time!

We're heading down to South Staffordshire for the next fortnight to run the rest of our summer craft workshops. So there's plenty of planning to do!

Crafts in Coventry

Here are a few photos from the first of two craft workshops we're running this summer at Southfields Primary School in Coventry (where we made our glorious tiger mosaic, and filmed our first video diary). Today we worked with some local KS1 children who each made their very own magical story book starring their very own wizard or witch!

They made and bound their books, then designed houses, potions, spells, and monsters to fill it.

At the end they added words to their pictures to complete the story.

Seven Summer Hats for a School in Slough

So much for a relaxing end of term! We spent the last week before the summer holidays at Marish Primary School in Slough, making headdresses with (almost) all of its 640 children.

Each year group needed something different to wear for the procession at their annual Dance Festival (called Let's Dance), so we put our heads together and came up with 7 designs for 7 workshops: Reception made some colourful Rainbows; Y1 a night sky with a big yellow Moon; Y2 made feathers for their Air themed hats; Y3 did some brilliant, tall Fire headdresses; Y4 made long, sharp blades of grass to represent Earth; Y5 echoed their Water theme with wispy strips of shiny film; and Y6 made some impressive firey Suns.

Getting through all of the classes in just 5 days was certainly a challenge! But we got it done, and the results of the project are brilliant. We've been promised some photos from the event, so I'll pop those up as soon as they arrive.

Many thanks to Lucy for helping us out on the Monday when I couldn't be there. You did us proud! Does that mean that you're officially the Third Big Art Person though? We'll have to wait and see...

The Big Cat People

The Big Art People have been at those pebbles again! This time we spent 6 glorious days at St. James' Junior School in the centre of Derby, working with ALL year groups to produce these, frankly wonderful looking, big cats:

The designs are based on the school's 4 houses: Panther, Tiger, Lion, and Ocelot. Tim sketched them back in the office:

At the school the pebbles were sorted into colours, and the the four big cats were laid out in sandboxes. They were then painstakingly transferred, pebble by pebble, onto the wall by us and the children:

It was a tricky project to get right, but everyone worked really hard and I think you'll agree that the results are fantastic!

Thanks to all of the children at staff at the school; and special thanks to Andrew Buckenham for his help and support.

Jim (Big Artist)

It's muraltastic!

Whitefriars Infant School in Northamptonshire needed their playground wall brightening up... so who did they call? The Big Art People of course.
We were asked to do a big bright mural along a minibeasts theme, so first we got the children to produce some designs, then took an element from each one to produce this mockup of the final piece:


Everyone was happy with the design so we packed up our paints and headed down to the school. We passed two very windy days painstakingly transferring the children's wonderful minibeasts onto the wall:


Everyone was really pleased with the final piece. It certainly brightens up the playground! And it's all the children's work.
Hopefully we'll be back at Whitefriars next school year to do another giant art project on the front of the school. Any ideas?!

Jim (Big Artist)