Drawing / Painting Project
How to introduce a painting scheme into the curriculum?
Research/ Investigating
First, I went on a reconnaissance mission both around the school and the local area. I found some fantastic little cottage around the corner from the school and visualised each student drawing and painting a cottage each. It is a great location only 5 minutes from school and there is a wall opposite the cottages for the students to sit on while they are drawing. It would be safe, comfortable, and convenient.
If you move your cursor over the photo you can view all the pictures of the cottages (22 pictures in total) at St Flannan's Lane.
I talked to one owner while I was photographing the cottages and ask her if it would be OK if I brought students from St. Flannan’s school to draw her house and I also asked her opinion about the possibility of the students drawing all the cottages, she thought it would be a great idea.
In case it was not going to be possible to take the students outside of the school grounds, I walked around the school taking photographs from different angles and viewpoints. I liked the way this stark building is intercepted by trees and I started to think about combining the built and natural environment in a painting. Often in paintings, the focus is on the landscape or the built environment, in Van Gogh’s paintings the buildings sit in the landscape comfortably in proportion whereas the school building dwarfs the trees, over powering them. The clock tower rises up in the centre of the building and the angles of the roof and walls create interesting shapes. Although I can draw some comparisons with Van Gogh’s work especially in the painting, “The old church at Nuenen or the church at Auvers” but the drawings of George Shaw or David Bomberg try to marry the natural and built environment creating a dichotomy or struggle between the two. I wanted the students to struggle and wrestle with these complex shapes, materials, and colours just as the trees struggle to be as domineering and dominant as the building is.
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| View of St. Flannan's Secondary School |
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| More views of St. Flannan's school |
After a discussion with the Art Teacher it was felt that it would be simpler to draw and paint the school building as this would not require parent permission slips and extra teacher support for health and safety reasons.
Research - Art Appreciation
I looked at the work of Vincent Van Gogh also George Shaw and David Bomberg.
Creating/ Exploring
Van Gogh
“To express the love of two lovers through a marriage of two complementary colours, their mingling, and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by a handful of stars” Vincent Van Gogh 1888
Van Gogh is an expressionist painter; his paintings are emotive and show vigour and intensity. His brush strokes were different from the predominant style of the period. His brush strokes were often elongated but not exaggerated. His paintings have an eerie but vibrant atmosphere, bold shapes, space, and composition. It is his urgency and dynamism that I want to convey to the students through the work of Vincent Van Gogh.
George Shaw
George Shaw (born 1966 in Coventry) is an Ilfracombe-based contemporary artist who is noted for his highly detailed naturalistic approach and English suburban subject matter
George Shaw has focused most of his work on the ordinary and mundane discovering a language to express his sentimentality and origins. I am interested in the way he treats these semi urban environments on the edge of Coventry city. He conveys beauty and treats the subject matter with sympathy. These drawings are void of human beings and therefore allows us to imagine an empty, forgotten place. Although they are realistic drawings, they are still able to express to the viewer a sense of personal turmoil, a longing to be in another time and place. The interplay between the natural and built environment has been treated sensitivity, and with painstaking attention to detail in the wall and railings, uneven concrete path, leaves and branches, shadows on the walls and path blurring the lines between the constructed and natural environment. I want to show the students his work because it is dealing with the ordinary, everyday views that we all see and ignore, to encourage the students to look again at their school with fresh eyes and to record light and shade, atmosphere, ambience and contrast.
David Bomberg
David Bomberg figurative
style of drawing portrays emotion, a sense of urgency, scale, space and
contrast.
I did several sketches from different viewpoints always combining the built and natural environment.
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| Initial drawing |
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| Starting to add colour using water colour |
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| Details of painting above |
I found a viewpoint from the side of the building that suited my purpose and began to study, draw and paint it from this angle. I used a variety of materials with the aim of exploiting the built and natural environment.
The scheme is going well I have some wonderful drawings the first years have been doing. It is a difficult building with lots of right angles, windows and perspective to consider. See below students work in progress. I encouraged them to be experimental, to use a variety of materials and to capture the variety between the built and the natural environment.
School Students work
School Students work
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| Lesson 1 & 2 biro and chalk pastels |
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| Lesson 3 wax crayon and coloured inks |
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| week 3 lesson 5 & 6 Pencil |
Finished student paintings - note, initially I was worried about the painting scheme
1. My personal painting practice is weak (to coin a phrase used to describe students work by art teachers although it's not a phrase I like)
2. The practical ramifications of taking students out of doors and managing the materials
But on both accounts I needn't have worried, the students loved going out to draw and I enjoyed the process of research drawings and the final painting, although I am no painter!
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| Final paintings by Year 1 students at St Flannan's College, Ennis |
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