Urban Park Through the Eyes of Children

E. W. Coffin School

2009-10-22T05:00:15Z

I worked with the E.W. Coffin School in Fall of 2009. I taught 170 students from Kindergarden to Grade 6. We studied the Wispering Woods for one week.

1. Viewing then drawing from memory

2. Sketching while viewing the item or space you are drawing

3. Learning new sketching methods

4. How to use Oil Pastels

5. Creating a picture combining memory and viewing techniques

My with the children at E.W. Coffin School

See the Children's Paintings at Artpoint Gallery

2009-01-07T21:06:57Z

'Urban Park Through the Eyes of Children'

400 Paintings, sketchbooks and photographs on view at Artpoint Gallery

January 16th Opening from 1pm to 9pm

Show runs until January 31st

Artpoint Gallery
located at 1139-11th Street S.E., Calgary, Alberta, T2G 3G1
just west of the 12th Street railway overpass in historic Inglewood/Ramsay
From 11th St. S.E., turn west on 19th Ave., then north on 9th St.,
and finally east on 11th Ave. and follow it to the end.
Plenty of free parking available

Creating the Final Painting

2008-12-12T05:06:40Z

This is just one example of the many fascinating paintings created by the children at Langevin School.

The final paintings were created over two visits with each of the 16 classes. Judging by the speed to paint in their sketchbooks, I thought most of the paintings would be completed within 15 minutes. I was wrong, many of the students barely finished after two classes. The children were really engaged in the painting exercise and they cared to create meaningful work.

This student was careful to create textured grass and her tree has a few fall leaves. This careful placement of the leaves at the end of the branches creates an 'iconic' image of a tree. The strong colour of lines in compared to the lighter colour of the background make for a very interesting painting.

This picture was taken in the stage before collage was applied. I can't wait to see where and if, the student decided to take the work any further.

This is a picture of a completed painting. The student has combined the use of paint, conte and collage. The duck is a picture taken when his class went to visit Centenary Park. This student also included a photo of the sign that is in place at the park.

Day of Planning

2008-11-06T00:07:44Z

It sounds strange - asking children to 'plan'. One of the great characteristics of kids is their ability to live in the here and now. Sometimes they have a birthday every other month, just becuase it is fun.

For this project, I asked the kids to imagine what their finished paintings might look like hanging together. I asked them to imagine how they would like to see the work hanging together even before they created the paintings!

"Tell me children, what was one of your favorite things from your visit to the park?" I asked them to open their sketchbooks up to their favorite page. The interesting thing is they all had very unique experiences and visuals to share with the class. How do we possibly create a unified panel for each class without taking away from the expressions of their individual experiences?

Here is a sample of what the children were sharing:

Feeding the birds - Vivan
Rubbing textures from the wood panels that made up the bridge - Mohit
Bow and Elbow River meeting - Chetan
Changing colour from first visit of park to second visit of park - Nicolas
Pathways to the water, the bushes parted to let people through - Alexandra
Walked through secret pathways - Samantha
Found heart-shaped rock - Connor
Surface on the water would change with the rocks - Denika
Leaf imprint in frost - Emma
Rocks and leaves under the ice

There is a long list of experiences generated from the grade 3&4's visits to the park. An element that went through every class and almost every student was 'leaves'. Many of them did rubbings and drawings of the leaves in the park.

In order to honor this focus, I thought it would be great to add a structural element to the project. Each student can construct and paint three leaves, which will then be placed around the gallery and hung from the gallery ceiling. As far as the paintings go, each child should have the freedom to create their own favorite memory.

Practicing with Mixed Media

2008-10-29T22:46:23Z

Second phase of the project is practicing with the media and then creating the final paintings. Sixteen classes and over 375 students will eventually have created their own painting inspired by their visits to Centenary Park. For this second phase the children were asked to remember or to refer back to their sketchbooks and to focus on one particular image of the park.

First step is to paint a background on the paper with acrylics. Second step is to draw on top of the dried acrylic with conte or pastels. The third step is to collage colourful scrap paper onto the painting. The students worked directly into their sketchbooks so they could keep a record of their progress.

I told the students, "There are many different ways to create a painting and I bet you already have a favorite way to work, but today we are trying something different." I did a demonstration on how to use acrylic paint to create a background wash. I talked about finding a balance between the right amount of water and the right amount of paint. I showed the kids how to mix colours on their paper and to keep the colours in the palette clean. The were encouraged to notice the effect of colour layering and how layering can create new colours much like creating colours on your palette. I told them the proper colours of the paints and they all tried to remember the names.

The kids came up with some really inspiring images and combining the three different methods was a great success for them.

Next class involves planning. The children will talk about what they want their message to be as a class and how that message is going to affect their individual paintings.

First day with acrylics

2008-10-16T02:09:41Z

October 14th was the first day of acrylics with Grades 1 & 2 in the morning and then grades 5 & 6 in the afternoon. I brought with me my large print of 'Calgary Memoirs' and my Art Suitcase. I used the painting to give them a closer glimpse of how I create my work and all the possible materials to use for their final paintings.

The kids seem to really appreciate me bringing in my work and they had a lot of questions about how it was created. It always makes me a little nervous to show my work to big groups and to say, "See, this is what I do." I am always a little scared that someone will say, "That looks stupid.", but they never do so I am not sure where that fear comes from. It is in us all I guess.

I opened up my painting suitcase to great anticipation from the audience. In the suitcase I had my acrylic paints, brushes, rags, palettes and of course my magic sands. The suitcase was a real hit.

After the show and tell I had the teachers running around like mad to get some supplies together. Sorry about that teachers, I guess I figured your day wasn't hectic enough. :-). We all really just needed to dive into the painting. Many of the students had never worked with acrylics so it was important that they received this introduction before we got to close to final painting production.

It was a bit scary because the kids were used to working with Tempra, which is completely washable. The acrylics are not. I am wondering if there were a few unhappy parents later that night? We warned the children before they started and actually, they were all as careful as possible.

The aim of the lesson was to get the children learning how the acrylic goes onto the paper, how to create texture, tones of one colour and a variety of colours with just the three primary paints. They did a great job.

Visit to the Park & First Classroom visit

2008-10-13T02:32:35Z

Park with Grade 3 & 4

This morning I worked with grades 3 & 4 out in the park. It can be a tough thing to ask children to concentrate on doing anything on paper when they are outdoors. Children love to explore with their fingers. They want to touch the rocks and the leaves. They want to build leaf towers, skip rocks or hold bugs, not draw them.

There curiosity is precious and I am fascinated with what they discover, but our 'plan' is to get the children to somehow record their findings in a way that can be brought back to the classroom. Collecting items was generally discouraged because often in park situations removing material is not an option. The only other way to have a reference of what was discovered is to have a visual record. Sketching, writing, rubbings, tracing and photographs were the main tools used by the children.

A child would point out to me a tender weed and I would have to encourage them to sketch an image of it. I would ask them how could we try to recreate that weed back at the school with paints and pencils? He would say, 'I want to glue it into my sketchbook', and I would have to try and encourage other methods.

The park visits are both a rewarding and frustrating experience for a couple of reasons: of prime importance is the children learning to see, explore and enjoy the park on a deeper level. The art is how we are hoping they will be inspired to express this new found enjoyment of the park. While we are in the park I don't want the children to feel like they are being told what to do and how to 'express' themselves and yet this is exactly what I end up doing in order to get some material for the classroom work. The reward comes when they truly find something inspiring and create something so beautiful out in the middle of a grassy field.

The kids generally have a good time and most of them come up with some neat sketches, but I do feel like they are participating in the act a bit to please us adults. I hope in the end, they find their own way to 'express' their experiences from the park.

Exploring research in the Classroom Grades 1&2

In the afternoon I worked with grades 1 and 2 in the classroom. We had already been to the park together and now we are going through the materials they collected on site. Through group-colouring exercises the children began 'seeing' in more depth, the recordings from their sketchbooks, photographs and memories of the park trip.

The children were all excited and their enthusiasm is very energizing. They got together in groups and created amazing drawings. They talked together about what they saw in the park and shared ideas on how to express their version of the park. I think this was an important step in the project. Both the children and the teachers were absolutely wonderful to work with.

Next this group will move into painting and collaging. We need to have the supplies ready for that visit. I hope to post pictures soon. Please add any comments or questions you may have to the entry, I will be checking back often.

Overview of the Project

2008-10-13T02:29:41Z

This semester I am teaching children how to create a mixed media painting from their experiences in the park. This is a large project involving over 350 children and multiple visits to a local city park. The project is called, "Urban Park from the Eyes of Children".

The objective of this project is to invite children to recreate their own personal experience through the use of reference material collected while on site. Their experiences will be told through painting, drawing, writing and collage. This is a sophisticated project in the manner that it requires children to experience a place, be aware of what they experience and then to later, create an impression of this experience in the studio.

River divides the city

This project arose out of my personal art practice of doing urban landscape. There is an element of fantasy and imagination in my cityscape paintings, rather than an exact recording of what I saw or what the camera captured while visiting a city. Check out Big City living gallery .

I record my experiences through journalling, photographs, sketching and collecting momentos. Later, I create a painting using my record of the on site visit as reference. The viewer gets a look into how I experienced a place rather than a cold view of the city. No one can repeat my paintings, they are unique to my experience.

This is what I am hoping will be the result of this project with the children. Through multiple methods, the children will record their experiences in the park and later in the classroom, I will help the children to use their recordings as references in creating their own unique painting.

The children need a lot of room for exploration and self-expression. We need to help them to continually find new inspiration from the park and to help them find ways to record what they find interesting. 'Seeing' what is around us in a clear enough fashion to record it, is an important skill for an artist. It takes a lot of practice. Because children are just learning this skill, we may often see wild examples of fantasy and exaggeration while they recollect their visit to the park. We have to accept this deviation from what is 'real' in order to get a true interpretation of the children's experiences.

Children have a lot to teach the world and they can often do this best through creative expression. As a teacher I have to resist the desire to help shape their paintings to something that is more 'real' or 'correct'. The process of learning to record and later to reference recorded material to create an entirely different thing - is a learned skill that is perfected throughout life.

It is my job in this project to help the kids and teachers, to throw the long rope from the island of research across to the island of self-expression through mixed media. Children, much like adults, do not all learn the same way, so this link needs to be drawn in multiple exercises. In the end, children will have learned that collected research can then inspire a completely different painting that expresses their experiences in far more depth than any realistic drawing could do.

Children draw fantasy with natural ease. It is helping them to recognize the importance of their research in the final interprutation that is a challenge. Some children will see this link easily and other will need a few more exercises and a few more different attempts within different projects, over the years. That is ok too.

I will keep you updated through 'Art tips' in Burst and Bloom. Subscribe to the RSS feed to see each entry.