Mark-making workshop with Fiona

 

This workshop was a chance to explore our forthcoming Whānau Day project, lead by Fiona. Fiona shared some approaches to mark-making that we can use with the children to free up their drawing and encourage them 'out of their comfort zones'. We were encouraged to play with scale, pressure, materials, textures and ways of making marks (including drawing with scissors).

Using a mystery box of small objects (bark, shells, leaves, buttons, toys), we tried out a selection of warm-up drawing activities from this list:

● Observational graphite drawing

● ‘Wrong hand’ drawing

● Pressure contrast: push hard / tickle drawing

● Memory drawing (object hidden) with white pen or chalk on black paper

● Double-line drawing with felt + biro

● Oversize continuous line on A3

● Irregular shape frame (tear paper edges)

● Cut-out silhouette and pastel around negative space

We also experimented with some Gelli Prints, using our cut-out silhouettes and various kinds of mark-making directly onto the plate. We aimed to layer up the images, working from the lightest to the darkest colours.

These are techniques that we will share with our Whānau Groups this term and we can also add to our kete for use in the future.

Here is a selection of photos of the artists at work.

Zine PLD - Week 1

TO Day 2: Stephanie Sinclaire Lightsmith, Artist

Stephanie Sinclaire Lightsmith

came in and talked to us about using art to express emotions. We did some exercises together that she has done with children and adults around the world, and she did with our seniors last year.

Painting emotion:
First close your eyes and feel into your body.
Write down the first emotion that comes to you. No judgment, be authentic (sometimes people need help clarifying their emotion).
Then paint what that feels like.

We were encouraged to use our hands to paint with, to deepen the experience and embody it.

Sometimes the emotion changed as we were painting, and we painted again to express the new emotion.

The science behind this is all about expressing emotions in a positive, creative way so that we don’t hold onto negative emotions, and enjoy our positive emotions.

We shared what our paintings meant to us, giving us all some understanding of what was alive for each other.

This is a great exercise for children to teach them a positive way to handle emotions that they are struggling to manage constructively.

Tapping into your body’s wisdom:

Close your eyes and focus on any body part that you choose for a couple of minutes. Feel into it deeply.

Now write from that body part to you - what is it’s wisdom that it is trying to tell you? Write for 5-10 minutes then read it over. What have you learned?

A third exercise Stephanie shared with us (but we didn’t complete) is to write to an authority figure in your childhood (parent or caregiver, etc) fully expressing whatever you want to and then also have them write their response to you.

We ended the session with a lead meditation to the stars and beyond...

Blog post written by Gabrielle