Plog

Over 2 days, two Year 10 groups worked hard to build large head sculptures. They designed and planned, constructed and clad bamboo cane and wire structures, and brought them to life in a darkened room, by projecting weird and wonderful animated facial features and sounds… Everyone worked with real talent.

A cow moos - a skull ignites - barbie girl sings - growling -  yawning - crying - slurping - an eye explodes - a geek looks geeky -  and she says blah, blah, blah! (we still can’t get it out of our heads).

In amongst all of this, a few pupils found a spare 5 minutes to make this odd little animation too!

We had a good time working in London. Thanks to all of you who were involved, you were fun to work with, - we think you should all be really proud of the results.

What really inspired us was how different everyone’s finished pieces came out - the Easter Island face really fitted the structure perfectly, the same goes for the geek, such detail. The robot/stand/mega-structure a masterpeice of engineering! The exploding skull was a shock, there was an audible gasp from everyone when it blew up. There was real attention to the details too - the tear falling, nostrils flaring, incredible mustache. The cow chewing and mooing gave us all a laugh. Sand animation mixed with photographs and a hand made mouth, put together for a strange and wonderful effect. The beautiful blah blah woman batting her eyelids…

Thanks to you too Mr Fullwood - it was great to work with you too, after so long talking about it!

Pupils in year 7 at All Saints school (where we previously painted the walls) worked together to make a short french film about the busy weekend of ‘Samuel’ and his friends. In just four short days the 60 students got involved in character and set building, drawing story boards, controlling the lights, cameras, and computers, and creating their own little sequences of animation in teams.

It was a really fun project. But very hectic! If we’d had more time the characters could have had armatures, that would have been ideal. As it was, under the lights and with the hot summer sun, the models became quite floppy and squashed by the end! In defiance of the pressures though, the students created some great work, really imaginative and we saw some very talented modelers and animators.

The film has been premiered at school, seen by staff and other pupils, and will be used as a resource for future curriculum work around hobbies and leisure. The hope is that other new resources with grow around it - worksheets based on the characters and story, questions about the various scenes… It was also a great way for the students to absorb French vocabulary, and if we do this again that’s an aspect we’ll try to focus more on.

This was a Creative Partnerships BAM project.

A long while ago, we went to Rutland House’s Christmas party, where we were asked to work with pupils and their families to create an interactive sound making sculpture!

We built a frame, and had help from pupils, staff, mums, dads, brothers and sisters, to do the rest.

Hose pipe trumpets were coiled around the frame, with pumps that could be stood on or wheeled over to make loud noises.  Pieces of copper were dangled from the roof to bash and tinkle, jingling bells on strings and otehr dangling noise makers were also tied, twisted and attached.

Instruments were made using scented seeds, tins, and recycled stuff that could be bashed, shaken or rattled to add to the cacophony of wonderful sounds.

Rutland House is a SCOPE School for young people with multiple physical and learning disabilities including cerebral palsy.

We’ve posted a lot about animation and films recently, so here’s something to redress the balance a little.

This was a really short and sweet project with Southglade Primary school last summer. They asked us to help build a tree for the school reception, to be part of a quiet area where children could read and think about their hopes and wishes.

We worked with all of the infants in the school hall (the only room big enough) to make leaves, blossom, and branches using found, reclaimed and recycled materials - plastic bottles, tin can bells, scraps of discarded paper, cardboard, carpet and twine.

The young people made birds and butterflies to sit among the leaves and the branches had pegs attached, for people to pin their thoughts to. Finally the tree was shuffled out by the window, with seats and a table under its shade.

We had a really wonderful time, but it was incredibly hectic! We learned a great deal about working with lots of people - two class at a time, doing multiple activities in the hall together. Piles of carefully sorted coloured materials gradually migrating to every corner. But there was such excitement, and as the tree grew, a real sense of wonder in the air.

Expect more in this vein soon!

We’ve recently helped pupils at The Bolsover School make an anti-smoking film.

We crammed loads into our five days at school, including: working with over 80 pupils, teaching the basics of stop motion, exploring different styles of animation, making props, developing scripts/storyboards, discovering disgusting facts about smoking, and recording dialogue, sound effects and more…

The finished film, with it’s combination of collage, plasticine, pixilation and sculpture mixes humour, candid interviews and shocking facts to convey the students personal experiences and messages.

We’ve been thinking about bones for a recent project at Newgate Lane Primary School!

Class four cast their minds back 13,000 years to create ice age art and bone flutes for Shine Week at Creswell Crags. The bones that they made have been buried in an archaeological dig box for other children to explore, unearth and use to make massive mammoth skeletons, or scary saber tooth shapes!

The flutes that they each made, using hand tools, wood and bone (PVC pipe) are available for visitors to the Crags to play and admire, and so too is a stoneage spooky cave soundtrack that class four composed and recorded with their own instruments.

Keep your eyes (and ears) peeled - the music they recorded will feature in an exciting cave art animation that we’ll add soon…

As if all that wasn’t enough, the children made their own drawing implements and sketched cave art with natural inks and charcoal.

This 3 day Creative Partnerships project, provided interactive resources for lots of school visits arranged to Creswell Crags for Shine Week.

Martin works a lot with a group in Derby -funded and organised by QUAD and Children’s Fund - an after school club for young people in Derby, some of whom are on the autistic spectrum. They make all kinds of things: Animation, sculpture, comics, films, music, photos, games; there will be more here from Q Club soon that’s for sure.

This time, with lots of help from local artists Sophie and Barbara, they built a geodesic, multi-sensory, spaced-out chill-out pod. A space to relax in and be surrounded by sounds, colours, light and textures.

So much happened! -

The whole group of 10 worked together to decorate 40 bamboo triangles with all kinds of reclaimed materials from PARC (an amazing scrap centre). We tried to make the shell translucent, wove lights into the structure, and the next stage saw us filming a coloured light show to be projected onto and through the dome. Have a look at a snippet.

We used the computer to mess around with the colours of floating inks and bottles of oil, glitter, paint and water. The final touches were hand made cushions, a dreamy soundtrack and a lot of effort to put it together.

Finally, on the last day the lights were turned out, the music started up and everyone got a chance to climb in and relax! It was so wonderful to see how everyone did their best to help put this thing together, it was a real team effort, firm friendships were made under the faceted roof.

All of the young people got a DVD of photos music and the full 20 minute(!) liquid light projections to enjoy at home too. If you fancy making your own geodesic dome (who wouldn’t) there are lots of good instructions on the web.

Pupils at All Saints planned designs, themes, colours, murals, mosaics and more, to transform three of their history classrooms into more inspiring, fun, and colourful places!…

During a very busy and exciting week, the team of 40 students worked together to sand, clean, paint, mosaic and mural the rooms.

Each day brought with it new challenges and changes… By Friday the rooms were finished, friendships had grown, and the team had really pulled together, got to know one another, and seemed to feel a real sense of ownership and pride in their newly aquired skills and achievements.

The themes reflected GCSE subjects taught within the rooms - medieval history; the two world wars; and the History of Medicine.

The finishing touches to each room were framed mono-prints that pupils drew, selected and framed themselves.

We worked with Anna Ogden at All Saints RC School, Mansfield on this Creative Partnerships BAM project

For the last 3 summer holidays we’ve worked at at Angel Row Gallery. It’s been really exciting to help young people between the age of 0 to 8 to have fun with art! Mums, dads, brothers, sisters, babies, cousins and friends have gathered in the family room to play, make and enjoy arts activities inspired by the gallery’s exhibitions.

The sessions have seen kites flying in the gallery, birds, butterflies and animals hanging, projected and collaged onto the walls, footprint pictures, treasure maps, masks, mobiles, printing, drawing, and lots of happy messy children and parents covered in colourful paint, glitter, fabric and glue…

Sadly Angel Row Gallery has now closed, but we do hope to be able to run similar summer arts actvities for young people again somewhere else - watch this space!

A magical time! We spent 6 days (over as many weeks) with pupils at Newtons Walk school building personal dens: Drawing plans and making models; building with bamboo, willow and cloth.

We set up a small village in the school hall, and projected drawings and animations that the children had made to match the shape of thier structures onto the sheer cloth walls. They could live inside their pictures!

After we’d played inside them, slept, invited our friends over for tea, rigged up a telephone network with tin cans and string and generally had a rum old time; amazingly everyone wanted to take their creations home! Greg the headteacher strapped them to a van and drove around derby installing the dens in gardens and bedrooms.

Quad funded and organised the sessions.