THE CORBIE part II

"THE CORBIE"  part II

The Corbie, such a good poem and such a great subject.  I love crow images, so full of life and movement.  The children appreciate the sinister qualities that the bird represents.  It's also a great way to learn the words of the poem.

I like to use words in a piece of artwork, and sometimes do so in my own work.  I think that is a natural thing for a child, they use a mixture of words and images to express themselves from an early age, and are used to books having complementary illustrations along side stories.  In this case we used the words of "The Corbie" poem and sounds that the crows made as a background and texture for the drawing of the bird.

We used thick and thin black felt tipped pens  for the written work. (Berol are the best)  The children are allowed to ignore all the rules of writing.  You can imagine how well that goes down with the pupils, and unpopular with their class teacher I become!  By ignoring spacing, the rules of capital letters and even spelling to the children are able to keep the words flowing and create texture and pattern. The contrast between thick  and thin lines and large and small words start to create a  sense of distance too. 

The qualities of the felt pens allow the children to create shadowy trees, by painting wet tree shapes the ink from the pens and the water blend together to make spooky grey silhouettes.  (one to remember for Halloween)   

The class then created a crow shaped stencil (tricky cutting) and using soft drawing pencils the scribbled through the opening.  It is important that the pupils do not outline the shape of the crow but let the ends of the pencil texture define the edge of the shape.  Encourage the pupils to make the pencil lines follow the directions of the feathers.

We also added yellow beaks and beady eyes to create a vocal point.

LETS GET THE PAINT OUT!

Some of my class teachers still have a fear of getting the paints out.  Who can blame them, who wants paint all over the maths jotters and have to face the wrath of the angry cleaner who is trying to scrub the paint from the table without the use of chemicals.  But I love paint days and so do the pupils.  This series of lessons were done to revisit all the type of paint techniques that they may, or may not, have visited before.  It soon becomes much more than that.

 

Each school is different and I just work with what they have, but generally I try and set up at least 5 different activity areas.  Paint + either brushes of different sizes, simple printing blocks, rollers, bubble wrap (my old favourite), sponges etc. Also, the available paper, (A4 is generally big enough and should be various colours and tones.  The trick is to limit each area to one activity, eg one type of brush and two colours.  The pupils really have to work hard to exploit the possibilities of the combinations.  Make sure you limit the paint to a few colours + white to avoid the production of brown ( another lesson!)  

Be aware!  You need to be prepared for the children to produce many pieces of work!  organise the drying and make sure that every piece of paper is named.

Language can also play a part in this lesson.  The children can consider the experience as a series of "ing" words.  It's a really worthwhile exercise.

In another lesson the pupils will create a pile of circles of various sizes and arrange them, concentrically in different sizes.  We looked at the work of Hundertwasser for inspiration.

Some children added lollypop tree trunks to the finished work

Some of the classes brought in pizza boxes that we painted to arrange the circles on, this gives an extra dimension and elevates the finished piece into a "canvas".

I have also used the painted paper sheets to create African masks. 

So come on!  Get the paints out!  Its worth it.  You will produce so much more than just a mess.