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lessons. Students also practised observational drawing skills and used design skills in making their collages.
Tell us about the recent art project inspired by textile artist Susie Freeman Students in Year 9 have also been studying textile artist Susie Freeman in their remote art lessons. In line with the focus around personal identity, much of Freemans work addresses this topic. Susie Freeman is known particularly for trapping objects between layers of specially designed fabric and made a work of art called 55 Easy Pieces, which was based on objects related to her late father. Freeman also produced an autobiographical piece called Safety Net where she trapped 55 gold safety pins inside, one for each year of her life. The students already had some knowledge of
examples to provide some initial inspiration, the students set to work on their designs. As well as participating in the practical lesson alongside the students, the teacher also posted online at various intervals during the lesson to provide progress updates. The students demonstrated real passion and creative flair, creating inventive garments in the safety of their own homes with pleating, ruffles and ruching as they manipulated the newspaper and with support, discovered different ways to join and link their designs together. This project taught them many skills including manipulating materials around a form. Once they had all finished, they posted their creations and displayed them together in one online fashion show, which the students were very excited to participate in.
How did a “virtual school trip” help to connect and inspire students? Probably one of the hardest aspects of adapting to home schooling is the realisation that all school trips would be cancelled for the foreseeable future, so it was decided the school could still go ahead with school trips – even if from a distance. The Year 8 students recently enjoyed just that with a special art lesson centred on a virtual trip to a museum. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford is one of the best and easiest 360 tours to use online. The art teacher had spent some time navigating the museum and found it was easiest via an iPad. The school has physically visited the museum in the past with art groups and knew there was plenty there to inspire. It also meant students could use the information they gathered on their ‘trip’ for future virtual art lessons. As a class they all logged onto the museum website together and explored it via the 360 tour as a group, sharing their experiences. Students told others in the group about the things they had discovered and how to navigate them. The students also looked at masks, ceramics, shrunken heads, Navajo outfits, boats, musical instruments and witches in bottles. Following the virtual visit, the class drew inspiration from the objects they enjoyed most and looked at the beautiful handwritten labels that accompanied each exhibit. They then made collages of items they most connected with. This is all information they will be able to use in their future remote
June 2020
her work and watched a presentation that highlighted these two specific pieces. Each armed with a hand sewn net of nine pockets (which the teacher had posted to them ahead of the lesson), the girls were challenged to trap nine items from their own lives that told us about their personal identity. The objects were sourced from around their homes, trapped inside the net and then written about explaining what each item said about them. The students really enjoyed this exercise, loved
searching for objects that summed up their personality and talked interactively online with each other during the lesson about why they were making these selections. The results were varied and interesting and reflected their lives. As an extension to this work, students were invited to draw their objects in their sketchbooks.
proceeded to plan and draw onto the outside of the cloth pencil case, which required a lot of thought with spacing items as well as observational skills. They could trace objects through the thin cloth but still needed to add the observed finer details. The class stayed online during the session and
they drew together as a group. A few asked questions about drawing on both sides, adding shading etc. and you could feel the concentration via the video link as they planned and drew their images. At the end of the session everyone showed each other their achievements on screen and many had also planned to continue to draw on the other side of the pencil case in time for the next lesson. The project has given students time to reflect, focus and concentrate while learning new techniques.
How have you retained a sense of normality during remote Art lessons? t has been important for the school, during this phase of remote learning, to provide its students with a sense of structure and normality, which means ensuring the right resources and instructions are available from the outset as well as giving clear direction on expectations and how students can communicate during the lesson. During art lessons, teachers have also been providing extensive videos, images and links to relevant articles that students can read. These provide an opportunity for asynchronous learning, something that Doug Lemov has recently written about. In this case the teacher also hosted live
discussions prior to the start of the lessons to encourage retrieval practice and modelled the practical tasks throughout in line with Rosenshine’s Principles. The teacher used cold calling approaches in these remote lessons to get all students involved, reminding them to turn their microphones on and was able to provide immediate verbal feedback to ensure maximum progress.
How have remote Art lessons helped the students to reflect, focus and concentrate? Before lockdown, the school’s Year 8 students had been studying the work of ceramic artist Katharine Morling, whose distinct black and white pieces have become the inspiration for a new remote art project – The Pencil Case. In ceramics lessons students had already made items from their pencil cases in white clay and added black lines in a similar style to the artist. As an online lesson they had also constructed their pencil case and other household objects from white card and black fine liner, so this project led on from previous work. The idea was to draw the contents of the inside
of your pencil case onto the outside of it. Each student was sent a cloth pencil case ahead of the lesson to work on. The use of a white cloth pencil case and black biro or fine liner led on from the work of Katharine Morling. Students were given a step-by-step presentation online before the lesson as well as an online introduction. Then they
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What’s next for remote Art lessons? These art lessons have been about devising experiences with three-dimensional elements that would lead on from the work the students have been doing in school as well as developing outcomes that could be used in school, when they eventually return. Next up, they are planning a rather poignant
desert island art project looking at what the art students would like to take to a desert island or would choose to isolate with and why. That, along with creating a museum or art gallery in a tin and embroidering a selfie at home, should keep them busy for the next few weeks at least…
uwww.habsgirls.org.uk
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