Melissa's Melting Pot

Great day today with in region 4 with the Enamellers guild! We tried lots of different techniques and had an amazing tutor: Jill Leventon. You can check out her website here: http://www.jleventon.co.uk  We started off using a press former to create different shapes and patterns on the copper. We tried it out a few times with different patterns and shapes, testing out how much pressure to use!  Then we tried crimping the copper to create different effects. Using the different crimpers we experimented with pattern.  Jill then helped me make a shell shape using the crimped copper! It looks amazing!  Which I then enamelled with liquid copper enamel.  Thank you Jill and the rest of region 4 for a great day! 

This week I have been playing with the idea of sensory mark making gel bags.  They are super easy to make and the kids are loving them! You can tape them to the table or walls or windows and even put shapes, numbers or pictures behind them.  The kids have really enjoyed using the bags to make marks in and play with. Defiantly work a try in your setting!  I used hair gel, food colouring and glitter for my ones but you could use anything really! 

I have been a member of the Enamellers guild for a few years now and have only been to one meeting so far... So I thought this year that should change, and I signed up for the workshop/meeting last weekend with Ruth Ball. We experimented with surface design and how to create a matte finish on enamelled pieces. It was really interesting, that is when I finally found the English bridge workshop (the place it was  held at).  Ruth was an amazing teacher and really very modest about her ability, here are some photos of her stuff... Beautiful! You can check out her website at: www.ruthballenameldesign.com  Here are some examples of the work produced... And these are my four pendants! I also found that being in a place that had lots of experts who had been enamelling for years was very inspiring and I had loads of inspiration and ideas through talking to the other members of the guild. I will definitely be attending the next meeting! The moral of this story is to try new things ...

Today we made fossils, and it was great fun! This week has been focused on dinosaurs so we used the toy dinosaurs to make marks in the clay.  We then rolled out snakes of clay and flattened them to create walls.  I mixed up plaster of Paris with water to a gloopy consistency so I could spoon it out into the molds. Then I filled the molds we had made with the mixture and left to set.  When set, we carefully peeled the walls away and saw the 'fossils' we had created. The design was raised as the negative space we had taken away through pressing dinosaurs into the clay was filled in.  Here are a few examples of our fossils. 

Assessment in Art and Design... Is it nessisary?  What does assessing art achieve?  Why assess art? We discussed this in our art seminar and came up with a list of reasons for assessing art  Do you assess art? Or do you not see the point? What is the value is assessing art? This really made me think. I've not seen a huge amount of assessment in art and have found that the others in my art group haven't either, and some of the assessment I have seen has been very subjective and inconsistent throughout the school. I have also seen some amazing assessment of art in other schools and they have used success criterias and peer and self assessment to look at children's art and level it. Does art need levels though? Or is it just like Maths, English Science etc...  This is a question to think about and consider as art is unique as a subject in that assessment can be subjective and should be based on skills and techniques, in contrast to personal opinion.

In our seminar today we were given the 'team building' task of  creating something to wear to a celebration . We were given a selection of materials and were able to do whatever we liked, but had to work as a team. The task had to be completed in 20 minutes. In my team there were four of us and we quickly decided that we want to make a graduation gown and hat. Without further discussion we got on with the task at hand. This meant lots of cutting, stapling and taping onto our model (who volunteered for the job). I created the black bin bag gown, Charlotte made the graduation cap and Jenny created a flower corsage to go on top of the gown. This was fun task and a really nice way to start the year off with Art! Here are the beautiful celebration outfits our Art group made: After we showed our outfits we were presented with a question from the Lecturer Sadie. She asked us to answer two questions individually: Why were you able to work well as a team? Did any ...

Our second 'field trip' last week was on the Friday to St Ives! And it was BEAUTIFUL weather!!! Which for those of you in the South West of England will be a surprise! We went to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Gallery first which was really lovely. I will be honest, I wasn't quite sure whether it would be any good or if it would be dull but the education officer there is absolutely lovely and so informative!  You can see into what would have been her studio and see pieces that she was working on before she died. Here are some pictures from the Garden: After that we went to the studios attached to the Tate St Ives and thought about what we might use in a medium term plan linking the subjects with activities you could do at the gallery, we also looked at potential challenges and possibilities when planning trips. This was the view from the window! We then had some free time in St Ives, so it was off to the beach!

Last week on the course we had two art trips, one was to visit the Plymouth College of Art and Design (PCAD) to see an artist's exhibit and work with her, then we visited her studio to continue working on a collaberative piece of artwork. The amazing artist we worked with was Sarah Downham Lotto who works with mixed media and collage to create amazing pieces of work. Have a mooch at her work, her website is www.sarastudio.net  An example of her work We started out with a HUGE sheet of paper and with black marker pens we added shapes, lines and doodles inspired by her work (which featured a lot of circles as you'll see in the pictures below. Then we added colour using coloured inks. And then added detail with coloured tissue paper and crepe paper. I will be honest, I didn't like certain aspects when completing this work, but actually when reflecting on it all of the different aspects work well together and I did enjoy making it and liked ...

A brilliant idea which I intend to use next time I'm in school around Christmas time is upcycling books. This is when you use old and battered books (but if you do decide to use this idea with children then ensure that you say that these books are broken so they don't go home and start tearing up new books!) and reinvent them, using the books and giving them a new purpose. There is an amazing artist called Bronia Sawyer who is from the midlands area and has gone into local schools to show children how to upcycle books. She's been experimenting with folding and utilising paper to create sculptural pieces of artwork and even wearable pieces, with a focus on Upcycling books. Her website is www.littlebookbird.co.uk and showcases her inspiring artwork, have a mooch :)  This is a photo of me, Bronia, and Ella (my sister)  Here are some examples I've made from upcycling books...

As a hobby I do Enamelling which is melting glass powder onto a metal to create pattern or effects, and at the most recent fair with the Guild of Enamellers we exhibited at the NEC Hobbycraft, Fashion and Stitch show. The Guild of Enamellers website can be found here:  http://www.guildofenamellers.org/  and they welcome beginners happily. At this show I met an amazing lampworker [I will explain what this means later :) ] called Ray Skene who's website is:  http://www.celticglass.co.uk/sculptural.html , who I watched for hours as he melted and manipulated glass rods into loads of different shapes. He then allowed me to try making a glass bead which I was so excited about as it looked like it was such fun and a brilliant skill to learn. After making my first bead I was hooked and Ray told me about the Flame Off event which happens once a year and is an amazing glass event where you can go along and try your hand over the two days at lampwork. I have mentioned lampwork a...

Felting is a simple and effective way of allowing children to explore textiles through a craft, wet felting lends itself well to the classroom environment as it is easy enough to set up and each child will be able to do this technique.If you want details of how to wet felt there are loads of tutorials on you tube or even google wet felting and you will find a wide range of sites and blogs to help you. Here are some photos of my felting work.