Final Project Evaluation 

 

The title of our community project was "Drawn Together" and we were assigned Crescent Primary School as a community partner, which is the primary school next to our school. We were put into a group of 12 with our classmates and we gave ourselves defined roles in the group under the categories of: Team Leader (2), Communications officers (4), Photographers(3) and Technicians (3). We decided these roles on the very first day which kept our group organised for the project, as we each knew what we had to do as the project progressed. We worked with 8 students aged 7-9 and held two workshops with them. Our workshops were skills based and revolved around the theme of culture which we derived from the school's art week theme of British values. The first workshop was held during the art week which meant we could directly tie in the work we were doing with them with what they were doing at school. In addition to our workshops we also had two meetings with Year 4 teacher Matthew Lamptey to exchange ideas, answer questions and propose what we were planning to do in collaboration with the school.

I think that the workshops were really good as the children really enjoyed both of them and got the chance to draw and paint freely which many of them said they don't really get a chance to do at home, as their parents don't want too much mess to be made. As well as this, they learnt more about what the word culture meant which was important for us to get across in our activities, as often the topic of British values can get a bit stereotypical and exclusionary. We also managed to the teach them the skill of mono printing which is a good basis for many other types of printing, and they really enjoyed trying out a new technique. I think we managed to match our proposal as our philosophy stayed the same throughout the project even when we were held back by things such as train strikes. We allowed the children to express their creativity and explore more than they would usually within art, something that we might be able to do as older students but is often shut away from younger students, even though childhood is a very important time to be able to express yourself and learn about the world.

The teachers who worked with us on the project (Matthew Lamptey and Trisha Brown) also really enjoyed the project. Matthew said he was happy to see the children experimenting with art and seeing students that he wouldn't have expected to create nice pieces create quite ambitious pieces that filled the page. Trisha Brown was really impressed with the work we did with the students and said that she was interested in using our teaching techniques in her own lessons. She was also very impressed by how well behaved the children were and how engaged they were. This was very good as it meant that our community partners were really happy with the project we did and thought it was successful. Between our workshops and giving the students the tapestry we made from their work I think we carried out a sustainable project that can be remembered by the school and replicated in the future.

To improve the project, we could have done more workshop activities with the students to expand their skillset within art even more, using some of the initial ideas we didn't use before such as creating the stencil or using recyclable materials. A lot of our group was gone at different times in the projects due to summer schools so if we were to redo we'd make sure all of our group could be in for the workshops. We could also make our activities a bit more structured so that the children would be able to see a clear progression.

Creating a tapestry/blanket

To provide the Crescent students with something nice for them to hang up in their school and remind them of the work and time spent at the Brit School, our group thought it would a nice idea to create a blanket, inspired by previous research into Tapestry. This way we can leave a legacy behind and possibly even encourage the students to create something similar or create more artwork based on the activities we did with them. We created the piece by sewing the individual art pieces on to a square piece of fabric, with some members of the group doing embroidery to add nice features to some of the pictures. After that all of the individual pieces were sewn together to form a large piece. 

 

 

 

Handing the Blanket  over to the Crescent School

 

Tapestry research
We thought that it could be nice to make the work that the children produced in their printing workshop into something that looks like a tapestry which we could then give to a school and that could be a legacy left by us for the project, and a nice gift for them to display in the children's classrooms. Due to time constraints and facilities available, we would not be able to make a completely traditional hand woven tapestry however we can create a background for the artwork and sew all of the pieces together on a sewing machine.
About Tapestries
Tapestries are one of the oldest forms of woven textiles, dating all the way back as 3000bc in ancient Egypt. Common materials used to make them are wool, silk and linen, and more recently cotton and other modern materials. Tapestries were often made in the UK and other places in Europe but they can be found all around the world, below there are examples from Morocco and India. The Tapestries are made by being hand woven on a loom.

Moroccan tapestry

Indian Tapestry

I think this would tie in with our project nicely, as Tapestry is quite a traditional and often done in Britain, and it can also be found in many other cultures around the world which ties in with our theme of cultural diversity. It also ties in quite nicely as it brings all the students work together, which is a nice idea.

Tuesday 5th July

Second Workshop We had a second and final workshop with the children from Crescent Primary school coming to our school again, with 8 children as last time. First these materials were placed on the table:Chalk,Ink,Posterpaint,Oil pastels,Pens Brushes,Pencils and Straws. The children could then draw what they wanted with some time limits. Tyreis did a demonstration for the kids about drawing from their culture using visuals in order to help them understand more and from that they made more drawings and paintings. Then we did mono printing with. Louisa did a demonstration showing how to use patterns and telling the children to draw inspiration from previous drawing and patterns from their culture and then they did printing, also incorporating some writing in their drawings. 

In comparison to our first workshop, there was a lot more structure present in this one and we managed to keep the children engaged by starting with the free drawing and painting they really enjoyed last time then moving on to teach them new printing techniques, which was quite effective as even though they had the topic of culture and a specific medium they created unique pieces of art from their own imagination, and had control over what they were doing.
The students were really excited about mono printing and liked being able to draw again at the beginning. By the end the children told us that they really enjoyed the workshops and their time overall with our group. Miss Brown the teacher that was supervising them was also impressed by the work and was glad to see the students engaging creatively, and even said she liked the technique a lot and would like to use it in her lessons. 

If we were to improve or add to the workshop, I think we would incorporate culture a lot more in our workshops, possibly getting the children to look more closely at a certain artist or cultural aspect of London as they tended to gravitate towards things like flags and monuments, so it would've been good to teach them more about what culture is through art. We could also have done a few more activities such as the recycled materials one in the initial ideas, to use some unusual materials that the students might not use in their art lessons in school and made it interactive so that the children found used materials themselves. This however might've cause a safety issue as we would have to make sure the children don't handle anything sharp or dangerous like glass.