Mini-residency at Lord Grey school - week 1

 



Working for MK gallery so far has been a fantastically diverse experience and last month I was asked if I would undertake a mini-residency at a secondary school in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, working with a group of year 9 students. The primary aims of the residency were to get mixed ability students supporting each other and boost confidence by giving them the opportunity to exhibit in the gallery at the end of the 5 week project. I was given the loose theme of 'similarities and differences' and asked to do some painting work with them.

I always think collage is a great starting point with any project and it is accessible to all. So we started off working in pairs, with a newspaper and magazine each, and creating collages of interesting colours, textures, shapes and patterns. We then moved from 2D to £D, looking for and photographing similarly interesting things in and around the school. Students worked together to identify and capture things like stones, bark, benches, pavements and grass - thinking about the different textures, shapes and patterns presented in natural and man-made surfaces.

Mini-Makers session at MK Gallery

 

This mini-makers session was inspired by the current Melanie Smith exhibition at MK gallery, incorporating her themes of travel and foreign landscapes, as well as her compositions of different objects in pieces such as 'Orange Lush'. I first of all talked to the group about things that they might see on holiday - things like beaches, sunshine, shells and fish came up, as well as more unusual ideas like volcanoes, butterflies and tennis courts - and from this discussion, everyone drew their holiday picture. I then presented the group with a whole range of textured materials like bubble wrap, corrugated card, rice and wool, which they then used to collage their drawings with.  The next stage, (or so I'd planned!) was to get everyone to paint their collages with thick paint and then turn them upside on paper to leave a textured print of their collage. However, some of the collages were so intricate and beautiful without the paint that I gave them the choice of painting or not. The ones that were printed came out fantastically, and the ones that were left as they were, were equally as beautiful. Sometimes you can do all the planning in the world and have a clear outcome in mind, but it is also so important to be flexible and allow those outcomes to change!

Dancing girls

 



 

This is the first of many paintings that will appear in response to my trip to Israel. The background I created very spontaneously and quickly using leftover paint from some other work I was doing and had no real intentions for it at the time. However I was really happy with the result and I wanted to reflect the energy I felt painting in the main image, so I found two silhouettes of myself and my friend Alex dancing at a party in the forest. Might do a bit of tweaking to it - add some highlights to the figures to tie them in a bit more with the background, but overall I'm very pleased with it. It makes me happy looking at it, because I remember how happy we were dancing!

Landscapes of Israel

 

From Tel Aviv, to the dessert, to the wall diving Israel and Palestine, the country astounded me with it's bright colours, clear blue skies and contrasts between new and old, religious and secular, war and peace. So much inspiration to be found.

Art in Tel Aviv

 

 

Despite spending hours in Tel Aviv's incredible Museum of Modern Art, I actually found more inspiration on the streets of the city which are filled with graffiti, stencilling and guerrilla artwork. 

Mini-Makers session at MK gallery

 

 

This was my first mini-makers session at Milton Keynes gallery and it was a real success. We were working on the themes of painting techniques and Milton Keynes architecture. Instead of paint brushes, we used a range of household implements to make marks with including straws, balloons, sponges, plastic cutlery and Clingfilm! Everyone loved getting really messy and it was great to see them realise that paint could be used in such experimental ways. We then looked at and discussed different buildings and spaces in Milton Keynes, thinking about shapes in particular. Everyone then took scissors to their paintings, creating buildings, trees, sun, rain, cars and people out of them and composed them into beautiful unique cityscapes.

 

We also worked on one large collaborative piece (see top image) which went through the same process as the individual paintings. I've taken this masterpiece home to do some additional work to it and will post a photo on here once it's complete!

MK gallery workshop

 

 

This was my first workshop at MK gallery, working with yr1 pupils from a local school. The workshop was based on the current exhibition, Treasures in MK, which showed artworks from local collectors and collections based loosely on three themes; portrait, maritime and landscape. With these three in mind, I collected lots of different collage materials and the pupils made exciting colourful images of people, the seaside and the countryside. They loved playing with the different materials and, with no pens on the table to draw outlines, they really had to be imaginative and create using shapes and colours alone. It was fantastic to see them make artworks that they were so proud of and then look around the exhibition and be able to make links between their own work and the artworks on display in the gallery.