|
About the Project |
Projects |
Activity: create your own Picture of Britain project
|
Kelvin Hall School
Hull
Mrs Collins' Year 7 students |
 |
 What We Did
We came up with our own activity which was to explore working in mixed media with the students. The theme, which is very relevant to Hull at the moment, was 'Decline and Regeneration'. The idea was shared with our partner school who very much liked the idea of working with mixed media.
The students were asked to photograph different areas of Hull, those that were in decline and those that had been regenerated and make a comparison. We were very pushed for time as we only had available three 50-minute lessons.
The students' brief and challenge was to then put themselves into small groups, nominate a lead artist, and using the materials available plus their photographs create a mixed media piece that illustrated the theme. The pupils enjoyed the challenge which employed key skills, social skills, construction, photography, compositional, aesthetic skills.
Ship Wreck
Ship Wreck
|
|
I am the lead artist and sculptor of my group.
My group consisted of Nathan - assistant sculptor, Mathew, Joe and Steven.
We as a group decided to use only the natural materials we could find and not to use any electrical tools.
The majority of the boat was made from wood and twigs that we found in the school garden.
We all wanted to make a boat because Hull is famous for its Docks.
At first we wanted to make it out of plastics but we then realised that this would be too difficult and resorted to using only wood and wire,
the wood and wire made it look more like a ship wreck and that's what we decided to do.
As the project progressed the ship became a fascination.
We would all talk about ideas and different ways to improve and make the boat stronger all the time.
Overall we are very proud of the ship as it was all our own work.
Although the project was difficult it was great fun to be a part of, as we all worked well as a team.
Mathew and Steve were an instrumental part of the team as they provided us with photos of Hull.
Our aim when making the boat was to show how an old city like Hull seemed to be in decline has become a new city full of great new
things and still be full of great culture.
We believe we have managed to show this in our boat.
We as a team are extremely proud of our finished product and how we have worked.
Danny, age 12
Old Boat
Old Boat
|
|
I was the main artist of my group.
There were 3 other people in my group.
We discussed a range of ideas about what we could do.
We thought of making a ship wreck by using card and an old broken blind, string would hold all this together.
We thought of many other ideas but after a while I made the decision of making what we called 'The Old Boat'.
We first of all got a thick plank of wood for the base.
Then we drilled in 3 holes at the top in a triangular position.
We then glue gunned 3 sticks in to the holes and used them for the prow of the boat.
We got a long piece of cardboard and bent around the plank to make the boat shape.
We stapled it down.
We then started to rip up scratty bits of card board and glued them on the side to make the boat look old and unstable.
Then we got some pieces of an old blind and weaved them around the 3 sticks.
We mixed up some PVA glue and soaked some green, white and blue tissue paper for the base and made it look like the sea.
We then splashed PVA all around the boat and ripped up some pictures we had taken of old buildings and wheels and stuck them on the side.
I then got some paint and (green, brown, yellow and orange) mixed them up with water and splashed them all around the sides.
The boat looked old and tatty. We were very proud of our work by the end it all worked out alright.
Alexandra, age 12
Water City
Water City
|
|
I was the main artist in my group; I worked with 3 other people, Lori, Georgina and Violet. We were painting over pictures we had taken or found of old Hull adding wood effects and new Hull.
To make our pictures we firstly found pieces of cardboard to make a border, we ripped them to give an old effect, we then stuck on pictures of old Hull under water with ship wrecked steering wheels and parts of rotted ships. To add an old effect we ripped up cardboard and stuck it on to our pictures, on top of the cardboard we painted reds, browns and blacks to give a rusty feeling, we painted on top of the pictures to add more texture and rustiness.
We painted over our pictures and one girl in my group, Violet Sutcliffe, made a picture and stuck on pieces of old broken blind to make a boat floating on the water.
After we had finished we added one final effect, we got some dark and light oil pastels and wrote on words that we thought represented Hull. The finished pictures looked great and full of texture. If we had more time we were going to hang all of the pictures together using string from the ceiling.
Lucy, age 11
The Docks
The Docks
|
|
In this project we have been looked at the old docks in Hull. We worked in groups and my group made a mixed media collage of the Docks.
We drew an outline of what we were going to do on a large piece of paper. We wanted to make the picture look old and rusty. We took 3 lessons to do this. We looked at our pictures and made drawings of them.
We then found materials to make the picture, I brought some more in from home. I brought in grass, leaves, string and sandpaper. The picture is now looking very good and using the different materials has made it look better.
Matthew, age 12
The River Hull
The River Hull
|
|
In our project we have made a collage of a scene on the river Hull and using all different kinds of materials made it look like a real a picture.
We have used cardboard, paints, charcoal, glue and string. First we described what we saw in the pictures, second we drew our picture and third we put the final touches to it and made it look real.
All of our group combined all of our ideas and put them in the picture and by putting our ideas designs we made it look fabulous. If we had longer we would put more things into it and would have made it neater but with us limited for time we did our best and it turned out brilliant.
Liayle, age 12
|
Final Thoughts
Violet, age 12, speaking for the class:
We have been making mixed media work in art lessons, recreating
old ship wrecked boats and new and derelict areas of Hull.
We have also been taking pictures of Hull and the city centre
and researching Hull on the internet. We did this so that
we could look at old Hull and new Hull. We also created pictures
of the pier and boats and made them colourful and alive!
We got into groups and got some materials. We looked at the pictures and decided in our groups what we were going to do. If we wanted to we could sculpt, paint or make some wood weavings.
In my group we made the skies dark and dull to make the affect of a storm. For homework we searched the internet and looked through some books for information about Hull.
About half of the class went to the ICT rooms to research and find more pictures of Hull and research our partner school. They printed out the information and talked it to the group about what they had found out. We found out that our partner school is very different from ours and does very well with exam results and is in an area of London that has been regenerated.
We used the research of Hull with our own photographs to base our boats, collages and cardboard cut outs on. We also wanted to see what the dock and pier would look like because most of our cardboard cut outs were based near the pier.
Some found it hard to make the boats. But others found it very easy. Some people spent extra time on it at lunch time to make it look even better. The people who struggled with this boat making got help from teachers and in the end made the boat out of something they would find a good material e.g. cardboard. On the other hand the people who found it easy, made it out of harder materials like wood and wire. They also used some cardboard to stop it from falling down.
We learnt how to make something look scary and dull. We made our water city (cardboard cut outs) look unpleasant and like there had been a life taking storm. We made the waves have white tops to make the water look choppy and dangerous. I made my boat out of an old wooden blind. Others like Lucy made hers like a collage. She used a few pictures and made them all look stormy but in a way very colourful.
There were two groups who made the boats, a group of girls and a group of boys. The group of girls consisted of Alex, Kyra, Hannah and Sarah. The boys group consisted of Danny, Nathan, Matty and Steven. The boy's boat was longer in length, rather than the girls which was bigger in width.
The old Hull is completely different to the new Hull. The old Hull did not have as many attractions as the new Hull did. The new Hull has the Deep and The K.C Stadium. Hull has become a new town. It attracts more visitors now.
I have learnt that Hull is always changing and when it does it happens as quick as a flash. Hull will never be the same as it used to be because even if it's just a new shop that opens it makes a huge difference. Many people hated the old Hull and like the new Hull a lot more. Whereas many people hate the new Hull because there is too many shops or town is too crowded. As for me I love Hull because it is always changing. Overall the group really enjoyed this project we found it challenging and hard at times but in the end we are really impressed with what we have produced, and we are looking forward to sharing our work with our partner school and seeing their work.
Teacher: I found the project
very stimulating, being able to support the work by chatting
about the BBC series at the start of each lesson also helped.
It was a challenge within the short time frame, but I know
that the students found it a rewarding experience, that required
them to look at their environment afresh. Setting the scene,
being able to use 'The Tate' name added extra worth to their
achievements, I always refer to the students as artists, but
by participating in the project, I believe, actually made
them feel like professional artists, raising aspiration, especially
when adding on the tight deadline.
I enjoyed working with a partner school that were very approachable and supportive of the mixed media idea. The ICT part I found the most difficult, exchanging photographs etc, however, my colleague Leon Welburn took over the ICT input and created together with the pupils a superb PowerPoint.
|
|
View all Projects
|
PDF (3.4Mb)