Fantasy and the Surreal

Year 13 Art students are now finding their own sense of freedom to explore and venture into fantastical worlds of monsters and creatures. The following example shows how Jamie's studies have started to escape from his A1 study pages and are now becoming a 3D form.

Big Draw Week

Every day last week each of the timetabled art classes headed for the school hall to work together with as many as 90 students filling the space. They entered a darkened space and sat on chairs placed around four stunning theatre sets. Each set was designed and put together by the art teachers to reflect the themes of these classic children’s stories-Harry potter, The Secret Garden, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.

Following a brief introduction about the Big Draw event the stage door opened to reveal four live ‘characters’ who then positioned themselves to be a model in each of the sets. The models (from all year groups) had volunteered to dress up as a character of their choice and sit in costume whilst the classes drew them. Over 80 students throughout the week sat as models and took their role very seriously, despite being told they could move if they need to.

To capture a portrait or sketch the objects on the set provided participants with a unique opportunity. They worked using black biros to drawing to fill one page of a collaborative book. The front covers of which had

been beautifully illustrated by GCSE and 6^th Form students. The atmosphere was that of pure concentration maintained with the use of music carefully chosen from film scores.he theatre lighting created drama and provided a challenge for sixth form photography classes. Many teachers also took the time to come in and enjoy the drawing experience including Mr Locke.

The legacy of the Leventhorpe Big Draw week is 90 incredible Big Draw books, full of mixed age and ability drawings. The work is fresh, delicate, original and funny. The week- long event was a huge success for all those who took part.

Every Drawing Tells a Story.

The Leventhorpe Big Draw event is running for a whole week and has been planned by the art department teachers to celebrate the visual images conjured up in classic children's stories. The art rooms are full of story related objects and all year groups have been drawing, creating and imagining the objects, places and characters found in books.

Year 12 exam work in progress.

I tentatively share this work as they are early studies from two of our AS students. Their use and exploration of media leads the investigations. The fresh attention to detail gives a pure and beautiful quality to the sketches The charcoal birds relate to the theme of migration.

Embelish and Adorn

Cultures from across the globe have become the starting point for my year 10's next project. Students have been selecting the rich visual resources found in non western cultures. They have  been researching the way in which celebrations and customs from various cultures change their appearance to reflect a belief or tradition.

The final piece of this unit of work will be to create a clay relief which is an individual interpretation of a students chosen culture. It will have an emphasis on pattern, colour and decoration.

This weeks task involved working in teams towards a common purpose- to work on a model to paint and style them before taking a photograph of the results. They were given a jumbled box of fabric, decorative objects, images, face paints and a camera. The students worked with real maturity they were all immediately engaged and worked hard within a time frame to produce these stunning results.  

Day of the dead.

Asian Henna

Venetian Carnival

Venetian Carnival

Street Art Workshop

Sixth form Art students spent a full day with Karim Samuels from Street Art London.

 The day began with an illustrated talk followed by practical workshop in the use of stencils.

Students started the process by using photo shop to convert a chosen image to a black and white outline. Choosing a suitable image that would work as a cut stencil was key to the success of the final artwork.
The cutting of each stencil needed accuracy and concentration before finally getting to the more fun spray painting part of the process. 

This was done outside with specialised spay paints which are made from sugar gum. The colours Karim had selected for the students to use were bright and tactile. Discussion's of how to create eye catching combinations helped students to make decisions and create funky bold images on a variety of surfaces. They used canvas, corrugated card board and coloured paper to work on and also painted their own backgrounds as the stencilled images were used to create multiple layers and textures.

The students were reluctant to stop working and many spent extra time working at lunch. It definitely got their creative juices flowing and the teaching, guidance and working knowledge of Karim left the students truly inspired.

Street Art London provide facinating walking tours of Graffiti in London. Click here to go to their website.

The BIG DRAW

A day long event when 400 students and staff kicked off their shoes and created over 60 metres of dynamic drawings on the theme of 'Its Our World'.

World music and atmospheric lighting in the main school hall helped to create 'drawing zones'. Three large circles of paper provided central worlds from which lengths of paper were rolled out across the floor and even up the walls. Each length had either the theme of plastic throwaway objects which are harmful to the environment; or natural forms, leaves and flowers collected from around our school. All art classes were merged throughout the day with, at times, ninety students working within the space. 

The opportunity to take drawing outside of a usual class room environment challenged classes to build on their previous practice of observational drawing. The success of this communal event is evident not only in the high standard of the participants' drawings but also in their obvious enjoyment of the task. The students' individual focus and absorption resulted in truly self guided work. The art teachers could also just join in and draw.

The Year 12 Art students became 'BIG DRAW Creatives' for the day and worked tirelessly, either on their own drawings, or to help other younger students. In particular they used black shoe polish as a drawing medium to break up the space and connect sections of smaller objects.

The BIG DRAW Creatives.