The Gusserane Art Intervention: Week 4

This week with the pupils of Gusserane, Els moved them to the next step of their Joan Miró studies and employed them to paint their composititons from the week before. They were limited to using the primary colours which coincide with Miró's abstract style. They each received a paint palette, brush and paint and were left to go colour by colour in choosing what portions they were to fill.

The younger group generated a lot of excitement about the prospect of painting as they had been looking forward to it for weeks. However impatience seemed to be a problem with them as painting takes time. Similarly to their colouring methods, a number of the children were mashing their brushes into the page by trying to paint too fast. Picking up large blobs of the paint and necessarily "dumping" it on to the page to try and fill in large parts of the picture, thus drenching the page and making it difficult for the paint to dry fast enough by the end of the lesson. Yet the impatience could have easily been due to their awareness of limited time to fulfill the task, plus many of the children expressed that they had not painted very often before and so could easily have been approaching it with an impatient attitude.

Despite these struggles, each lesson will cause some, a number of the pupils engaged well with their paintings. We found that those whom had executed their drawings clearly and carefully the week before found the painting just as agreeable. Some results (example above) were excellent and overall the whole class created bright and beautiful abstract compositions. For the younger group in particular it was a chance to introduce them to the idea of using shapes that appear to be overlapping and to create an awareness for how to make those kind of traits on their own.

With the older group in the afternoon Els ahd them start from scratch and repeat the "eyes closed" exercise we had conducted the week before with the younger group as this group had done the slide making workshop. It was funny to find that despite the age difference there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty about committing to keeping eyes closed for this part fo the lesson. Els allowed me to give the instructions for what to draw i.e. big circel in the middle, two lines across the top, dots in the middle. I'm not sure if I had given good details to fill their pages, as I was suddenly put on the spot, but the results turned out well and once they had thier eyes open again they continued to fill in particular sections in black with their markers.

The older group worked well with the co-ordination of their choices in which portions of the page would be filled in black, some showing exquisite awareness of their images. Once they were moving on to the paint they carried out the exercise like the younger group, only painting one colour at a time.

As there was less time with this group as they had to draw their images, the second half of the lesson was slightly more rushed in order to have the paintings finished. A smaller number showed similar signs of difficulty in having patience with the paint i.e. thick blobs on the page, ruining the brush in trying to paint too fast etc. However some pupils showed excellent skills, by spreading the paint evenly over the page, keeping within the lines effectively and taking their time in mixing the paint with water to create a smoother consistency. A couple of them in fact mentioned that they had hardly ever painted before and enjoyed the exercise immensely.

They engaged well with making the shpaes overlap and co-ordinating the colours thus.

Some made sure to fill in the black marker as smoothly as they did with their paint, which was an important aspect we wanted them to pay attention to as the black is also a colour in these compositions and most were not giving it the diligence it needed. The black with blank spaces, faded lines and disconnected shapes could be seen in the finished product of these pictures and made it appear weak which we pointed out to the children, that the correct care needs to be given to all aspects of the image, not just the parts they want to do. Yet the majority of the results were clear, concise and well executed, one or two in fact showing exceptional talents at what they were doing.

With the older group Els felt thet it is important to challenge them as they seem to approach the problems they face more practically than the younger group, the group as a whole being a rather creative and co-operative one.