Monday 31 January 2011

Getting Creative in Schools

Last week I did some work in a primary school in Wigan for a couple of days, as part of the excellent services provided by Drumcroon Gallery in Wigan (if you live in the area, please go and visit, they have a fantastic exhibition on at the moment).  I loved it!!  I love working with young people, and being able to get creative with them, and see them explore their own creativity was fabulous.  

I had the pleasure of working with 2 groups of year 4 children for a couple of days.  Their theme was snow and ice, and we were focusing on colour and shape to create a piece of work, rather than drawing a picture (a difficult task, they are so used to drawing a 'picture' they found it difficult just to make marks by exploring shapes).


The first session, we got pastels out and made a mess!!  They were covered, and although some initially made a fuss about having dirty hands, they soon get into the flow and created some lovely pieces.  The colours were fabulous and they really explored mixing and changing the colours.


These were then recreated in collage, using recycled paper from magazines.  

In the second session, we had a look at stitch.  Spent a bit of time learning to thread needles and create lines with thread before using these new skills on top of the collages they had done previously.



Like I said earlier, a fabulous couple of days.  The children were great and most of them really enjoyed it.  I am looking forward to doing more!


2 comments:

Marie said...

That looks like alot of fun. Young children are generally so much freer in their expression and why do only a few souls hold on to it as they get older.
Marie x

jill mc said...

hello, it's jill here, (remember the mother's day craft fair last year!). Your Drumcroon workshop pieces are beautiful!
hope everything is going well for you x