Teacher Reflection
I am Principal of a three teacher mainstream school and have always enjoyed teaching art. Over the years I have tried many ideas with the children using all the strands in visual art: paint, clay, fabric and fibre etc. I like to be creative and innovative with visual art and to get children into a creative way of working.
Since 1997 I have been presenting in-service courses in visual art and in 2010 I attended four days training in Dublin West along with about fifty other teachers. One of the presenters there said that print was possibly the least explored strand of the curriculum and thinking about my own experience I would have to agree with that. This is despite the fact that print is everywhere around us, particularly in our homes.
When we first discussed print children didn’t really have a clear concept of what it meant. After we did some simple printing and looked at pattern books and print in the environment around us it became clearer and children discussed how print and pattern come together.
I think that print may be the least explored strand for a reason. To move beyond simple potato prints or printing with found objects was actually quite challenging. Although print may seem less imaginative or creative than other visual art strands initially, it does make children think.
This was particularly true with printing with lino cuts. The actual process of making the lino cutting is quite difficult and slow and children have time to really think about what they are doing. The creativity is both in making the lino cut or the stamp or selecting the object to print with and also in the use of it, either on its own or in conjunction with other objects or techniques. I found that the children tended to want “results” quickly but after a while they slowed down and took more time and care with what they were doing.
There were interesting discussions on print in our homes and in school. Actually there was relatively little evidence of print in the school environment so children were allowed to take digital cameras home to photograph examples there.
When these photos were uploaded and examined there was a realisation that not all patterns or designs were actually printed – some textiles were knitted or woven for example.
We also examined sample books of wallpaper and fabric from one of our local décor shops and we looked at the work of Andy Warhol and designer Orla Kiely. Some children have since reported spotting Orla Kiely designs when out shopping with mum at Easter. We may have encouraged a new “design consciousness”!
One of the most enjoyable exercises was the creation of images on Microsoft Paint which could be copied and pasted into repetitive patterns.
Exploration of some of the work of artist Andy Warhol inspired the children to make multiple prints and then make slight changes to each for effect.
One of the simplest print effects is that of folding a painted page – the old butterfly effect we’ve all tried at least once or twice. This task was changed slightly by having the children paint their own name in cursive writing along the fold before folding the page over. The result, when the page was re-opened was what the children described as lots of delightful “aliens”.
Some saw whole aliens and some saw alien faces. This led to a discussion on where the aliens came from. It was decided to experiment with different printing techniques to create the surface of the planet where the aliens live. Marbling, sponging and stamping were among the techniques explored. The biggest problem with this was keeping the children working in various groups from using too much printing or marbling ink.
The aliens and their planets then led to a further change of direction and became a starting point for some creative writing.
From the beginning we had an area of corridor between classrooms prepared with tables “loaded” with printing ink, acetate, rollers and resources for printing. It resembled something of a production line so one day after discussing /.brainstorming about print at home and in our lives generally (and in homage to Andy Warhols “factory” ) the children came up a new name for the project – “ Knockconan Print Factory Incorporated” (KPFI)
The curriculum document states
“Print-making extends the child’s range of expression. Print-making activities provide additional opportunities for developing awareness of the interrelationships between shapes and colours and the impact they can have, and for experimenting with pattern. They also draw attention to the use of print in everyday objects and help to expand understanding of the image-making processes in evidence in the child’s surroundings.”
This project certainly fulfilled all of the above and the children are now much more aware of print and pattern and the relationships between the two. They show a greater awareness of print and pattern in their environment as well.
Challenges:
Brain storming (especially at the initial stages)
Sourcing materials
Sorting and selecting pupils into groups
Cleaning up afterwards!!
Time factors
Getting the children to take their time and think about what they were doing.
Developing the children’s oral language skills in terms of discussing print and pattern and in looking and responding to their own work, their collaborative work and the work of others.
Display – as a relatively new school we find we have a lot of glass and lose out on display space – putting everything in a “big book” will help us keep samples for future years and will give us a good starting point for discussing and approaching this strand in the future
Positives
Pupils really enjoyed the project as much of it was done outside of the classroom in groups
All classes could be involved in some way. .
We now have a “Print Kit” put together for use in future years
Concepts around print are now clearer for all.
Pupil Involvement.
This year I have been working in resource so this project gave me a chance to work with children I haven’t been teaching this year.
I could also take out small groups to work on more difficult and time consuming parts of the project such as making the lino prints.
Getting the time to build and keep the blog site up to date has been one of the most challenging parts of the project. As a teaching principal time is precious but it was managed. Next time I am determined to start earlier in the year and then there’ll be less pressure at the end when the deadline is approaching!
With more time I think I would organise it slightly differently too and rather than upload some samples of work I think I would have a few gallery pages as well so that all work could be displayed.
I do think the process is good professional development and I will be encouraging staff to keep classroom blogs next year and ultimately get at least the children in the older classes doing likewise. Weebly is so easy to use that I think it would be quite achievable.
I know that although we did get a lot of work done we are only scratching the surface of this aspect of the visual arts curriculum. The blog is probably only a small taster of what has been achieved and I can see plenty of further opportunity in exploring print further.
Since 1997 I have been presenting in-service courses in visual art and in 2010 I attended four days training in Dublin West along with about fifty other teachers. One of the presenters there said that print was possibly the least explored strand of the curriculum and thinking about my own experience I would have to agree with that. This is despite the fact that print is everywhere around us, particularly in our homes.
When we first discussed print children didn’t really have a clear concept of what it meant. After we did some simple printing and looked at pattern books and print in the environment around us it became clearer and children discussed how print and pattern come together.
I think that print may be the least explored strand for a reason. To move beyond simple potato prints or printing with found objects was actually quite challenging. Although print may seem less imaginative or creative than other visual art strands initially, it does make children think.
This was particularly true with printing with lino cuts. The actual process of making the lino cutting is quite difficult and slow and children have time to really think about what they are doing. The creativity is both in making the lino cut or the stamp or selecting the object to print with and also in the use of it, either on its own or in conjunction with other objects or techniques. I found that the children tended to want “results” quickly but after a while they slowed down and took more time and care with what they were doing.
There were interesting discussions on print in our homes and in school. Actually there was relatively little evidence of print in the school environment so children were allowed to take digital cameras home to photograph examples there.
When these photos were uploaded and examined there was a realisation that not all patterns or designs were actually printed – some textiles were knitted or woven for example.
We also examined sample books of wallpaper and fabric from one of our local décor shops and we looked at the work of Andy Warhol and designer Orla Kiely. Some children have since reported spotting Orla Kiely designs when out shopping with mum at Easter. We may have encouraged a new “design consciousness”!
One of the most enjoyable exercises was the creation of images on Microsoft Paint which could be copied and pasted into repetitive patterns.
Exploration of some of the work of artist Andy Warhol inspired the children to make multiple prints and then make slight changes to each for effect.
One of the simplest print effects is that of folding a painted page – the old butterfly effect we’ve all tried at least once or twice. This task was changed slightly by having the children paint their own name in cursive writing along the fold before folding the page over. The result, when the page was re-opened was what the children described as lots of delightful “aliens”.
Some saw whole aliens and some saw alien faces. This led to a discussion on where the aliens came from. It was decided to experiment with different printing techniques to create the surface of the planet where the aliens live. Marbling, sponging and stamping were among the techniques explored. The biggest problem with this was keeping the children working in various groups from using too much printing or marbling ink.
The aliens and their planets then led to a further change of direction and became a starting point for some creative writing.
From the beginning we had an area of corridor between classrooms prepared with tables “loaded” with printing ink, acetate, rollers and resources for printing. It resembled something of a production line so one day after discussing /.brainstorming about print at home and in our lives generally (and in homage to Andy Warhols “factory” ) the children came up a new name for the project – “ Knockconan Print Factory Incorporated” (KPFI)
The curriculum document states
“Print-making extends the child’s range of expression. Print-making activities provide additional opportunities for developing awareness of the interrelationships between shapes and colours and the impact they can have, and for experimenting with pattern. They also draw attention to the use of print in everyday objects and help to expand understanding of the image-making processes in evidence in the child’s surroundings.”
This project certainly fulfilled all of the above and the children are now much more aware of print and pattern and the relationships between the two. They show a greater awareness of print and pattern in their environment as well.
Challenges:
Brain storming (especially at the initial stages)
Sourcing materials
Sorting and selecting pupils into groups
Cleaning up afterwards!!
Time factors
Getting the children to take their time and think about what they were doing.
Developing the children’s oral language skills in terms of discussing print and pattern and in looking and responding to their own work, their collaborative work and the work of others.
Display – as a relatively new school we find we have a lot of glass and lose out on display space – putting everything in a “big book” will help us keep samples for future years and will give us a good starting point for discussing and approaching this strand in the future
Positives
Pupils really enjoyed the project as much of it was done outside of the classroom in groups
All classes could be involved in some way. .
We now have a “Print Kit” put together for use in future years
Concepts around print are now clearer for all.
Pupil Involvement.
This year I have been working in resource so this project gave me a chance to work with children I haven’t been teaching this year.
I could also take out small groups to work on more difficult and time consuming parts of the project such as making the lino prints.
Getting the time to build and keep the blog site up to date has been one of the most challenging parts of the project. As a teaching principal time is precious but it was managed. Next time I am determined to start earlier in the year and then there’ll be less pressure at the end when the deadline is approaching!
With more time I think I would organise it slightly differently too and rather than upload some samples of work I think I would have a few gallery pages as well so that all work could be displayed.
I do think the process is good professional development and I will be encouraging staff to keep classroom blogs next year and ultimately get at least the children in the older classes doing likewise. Weebly is so easy to use that I think it would be quite achievable.
I know that although we did get a lot of work done we are only scratching the surface of this aspect of the visual arts curriculum. The blog is probably only a small taster of what has been achieved and I can see plenty of further opportunity in exploring print further.