Well, I knew that our workshops with Donnely would be a treat, but I was not prepared for how enthusiastic the children would be to learn about all the different techniques they would learn. Donnely and I were both truly impressed at how eager and creative the artists were today. Please ask them about what they learned and created in this workshop. Here's a quick summary…
First we experimented with our graphite (we learned the difference between graphite and charcoal, which was quite interesting) by adding layers of texture to our paper, beginning with fog, then rain, then heavy rain, then ice - we created an ice storm on paper. Then we experimented with different types of lines by imagining a swimming pool which starts out calm, and then gets crazy!
On another sheet, we made a value scale by going from darkest to lightest, and also thick to thin.
Our last technique with the graphite - and I think all of our favourite - was to make rubbings using tons of different recycled objects with interesting textures. Donnely brought salvaged flooring samples, mesh, metal disks with interesting patterns, keys, alphabet stencils and stickers and lots more. The children filled up their pages with tons of interesting textures that seem to appear magically from what would otherwise be garbage. (Try this at home!)
When the artists had exhausted the possibilities in Donnely's baskets, they quickly started finding other cool textures all over the classroom - from the surface of their chairs, to the drying rack, to the very interesting soles of their shoes!
When the children were all over the room, excitedly finding texture everywhere, I asked Donnely if this had ever happened before in one of her workshops. It hadn't.
With our pages filled up with tons of experimentation, the next step was to use them to cut out shapes for our collage. Some artists chose to make a creature, others made a city scene.
Donnely gave us some tips, like using the negative space from around a cut-out, as seen below. This became a popular technique.
At the end, we had chance to look at all our collages and comment on each others' work. We only had positive comments, and really some insightful ones too, recalling the techniques Donnely had shown and how someone had applied them, or complementing an artist's imagination and creativity. It was really lovely to observe, and I think all the collages look incredible. Truly!
