The Gusserane Art Intervention: Week 8

Part 1 Monday

We returned after an unexpected setback to the LAP in Gusserane today, now with less time we are completing the last 7 weeks in lots of two, so we will be coming two days a week for the month of February instead. We restarted the work with the children much where we left off in December, by continuing with their drawing sessions. Els came in with a beautiful book by a printmaker of small naturist illustrations i.e. bugs, leaves, trees etc, with which she chose a number to photocopy for both groups to draw. Following our concerns about the younger pupil's progress, our idea to possibly split them into two groups wasn't met with agreement by the teachers and so we had to put our heads together as to how we could tackle to difficulties with concentration. We decided to re-organise the room, like how we changed the setting for the still life sessions. This time we went with the usual four rows of tables on each side of the room, except placing the chairs in a zig-zag pattern, so that no child was sitting immediately next to another, but rather across so as not to be isolated yet not crowded either.

When we started the lesson with the younger group they attempted to change the seating arrangement automatically back to what they are used to, friends wanting to sit next to one another, boys tending to crowd around the back tables. We had to quieten them down and tell them to put the chairs back as they found them and make sure they were not sitting directly in front of or beside anybody. We noticed instantly how the group was more spread out, there were less children at each table and we could pin point pairs that needed to be separated to keep them from distracting one another. When Els showed them the images they would be copying they were excited and eager to start. Each pupil had a sheet of A3 paper and a thick black marker as before, they were to copy as many pictures as possible and consider their spacing, sizes,

composition, the clarity of their lines and focus on trying to reflect the shapes as aptly as possible. To our surprise, the idea of ever needing to split them up went out the window, the level of concentration in the room was higher than ever. Throughout our morning lesson with them we had few occasions where we had to correct a child for talking, not concentrating, distracting others or requesting to go to the bathroom too often. Instead it gave Els and I the chance to individually encourage the pupil's strengths and help them put more into their drawings. We also noticed a great improvement in their drawing skills since before Christmas, we saw more use of overlapping and perspective techniques, bigger attempts of small images and well organised compositions. Once the lesson was over Els and I felt they could produce some beautiful work for the exhibition and that gave me an idea for how we could incorporate the drawings in a more interesting means of installation.

Over lunch I discussed the idea of making the pupil's drawings into slides for the exhibition, that way we could have a lot more on show by projecting them rather than using traditional wall space. Since they were only drawing with thick black marker on white paper it would mean the drawings would show up very clearly in negative format on an automatic slide projector. I decided I would take some home and capture them on film and build some experimental slides just to see if the result is effective on an aesthetic level.

With the older group in the afternoon we had them do the same exercise as the first group, except with extra drawings to copy so they had a bigger number to choose from. The chair and table layout also worked well although there had always been fewer behavioural issues anyway. The pupils also responded well to the work, with a large number of them drawing remarkably well and creating excellent compositions. Els quickly saw that they needed to be challenged more and she had also thought about introducing them to sculpture. She talked to me about her ideas of giving a presentation on Thursday to them of artists whom make sculptures out of wire and create interesting shadowplay with them, she invited me to make a presentation of my own. We had discussed the idea of using light as a theme for the exhibition, especially if the slides turn out well, which could make for an interesting installation of the children's work.

Part 2 Thursday

Following on from Monday we returned to Gusserane today for our first Thursday with them. Since Monday went so well we decided to continue with the drawing exercises for the younger group, this time Els had brought in some new images that were a bit more challenging for them. We kept the sitting layout the same and encouraged the pupils to keep up the good work they started on Monday. We also tried to push them toward drawing their individual copies even bigger, as we noticed a lot of the class were attempting to copy the exact size if not smaller of the pictures they had picked. As their skills had vastly improved and their compositions were fine we asked them to include one large piece as part of the overall drawing as we felt that increasing the size would further challenge them out of their comfort zone. A number of the pupils did remarkably well and even just concentrated on doing one large drawing, those of which showed higher levels of detail and colour.

Since Monday I had also attempted to create some slides out of their drawings and they turned out beautifully. The black marker reverses as white in the negative film and when projected almost resembles cave drawings, the simplicity of the drawings form a distinctive contrast and made for really interesting images. Els was enthusiastic about them and we were able to start thinking about how we would put together an installation of light for the exhibition as we were about to introduce sculpture to the older group in the afternoon. I also thought that it could be interesting to get the younger group to paint again and pick up on the Miro techniques they did before, then to draw their images on to the paintings, not only just to incorporate both compositions but I also thought that they might make interesting slides.

With the older group, we had both put together presentations of different artists that work with creating shadows to make images, including Hans Peter Feldman, Christian Boltanski and Noble/Webster, all of which use sculpture to form shadows as the main visual foundation of their work. Surprisingly the group were on the quiet side today and gave little feedback, the sudden change of media perhaps overwhelmed them a little. Although we reassured them that we were only trying to inspire ideas in what they could do for Monday they still remained unmoved by the presentation. So when we wrapped it up Els had decided to give them an image of a pinecone to copy as it was the decidedly most difficult from the younger group in the morning. They got instantly absorbed into the challenge, however many approached it in a bit of a roundabout way. The image itself showed an illustrated pinecone, demonstrated by series of small tessellated diamond shapes that gradually grow smaller and further apart towards the top. The space in between is filled in black which was the part the pupils found difficult, they would focus too much on doing the top and then lose concentration when finishing off the bottom. However one or two managed to make successful renditions of it and created rather striking pictures which I was excited to capture on film. Unfortunately my camera was not working to take images of todays workshops so I have no live images to add to this post.