Creative Arts Wales
Community Arts Big Arts Week at Ysgol Gymraeg Rhyd y Grug
Big Arts Week at Ysgol Gymraeg Rhyd y Grug
I ran weekly workshops over a 3 week period in June – July 2006 as part of the Big Arts Week Wales working with children aged 7-8 in a local Welsh school in Edwardsville where we explored portraiture, particularly self portraits. Using traditional materials such as charcoal, pencil, paints and basic hand- printing processes together with a simple computer graphics programme, each child combined the skills learned along the way to produce a final ‘book’ about themselves called “who am I”.
These books incorporated written as well as pictorial images and included elements of English and mathematics in their construction, this I felt was important, to ensure that the children were aware that creativity is part of everyday life and did not see art in isolation to everything else. The children learnt a lot about themselves and each other. They used a variety of media both individually and in conjunction with each other.
Making the books was a very successful project which allowed the children to learn many new skills. The children looked forward to each workshop and were very proud of what they achieved. The ‘who am I’ books were a physical keepsake of their work. Many went on to continue working at home after each workshop and shared their efforts with their schoolmates at the next one.