The Art House, Killarney, were delighted to visit Lissivigeen NS for six weeks to deliver art lessons to their students, and the goal was to cover core units in the visual arts curriculum. A purposeful arts education at the primary level is life-enhancing and invaluable in stimulating creative thinking and promoting capability and adaptability, so we were delighted to support the school in achieving this further.
We focused on the strands of the curriculum that require more expert knowledge and specific materials such as printing, clay, painting, and construction; in each strand, various skills were covered, ranging from helping the students to express themselves, have enjoyable and purposeful experiences of different art media, appreciate other artists, and develop the skills and techniques necessary to communicate with various art materials.
Printing
For the first two weeks, we began by introducing the students to the history of printing and the artists we would be covering over the course before starting with mono-printing. Mono-printing with ink is an artistic process which has existed for hundreds of years and requires patience and concentration as it focuses on drawing and image tracing, but the results are worth it! In week two, we moved on to gel printing, a modern printing process which requires the use of acrylic paint, materials to stencil, transfer etc. The students loved the creative and expressive freedom of this printing, and some students were going to ask their parents to purchase the materials (apologies to all the parents!) Printing is fantastic as it covers many strands and skills from the visual arts curriculum, including drawing, painting and expressive freedom!
Clay
In the following two weeks, we focused on clay. We took inspiration from Picasso's cubism portraits, and the students learned how to shape, smooth, and score their clay correctly. Once dry, they painted their clay, taking inspiration from the vibrant colours in Picasso's work. The main aims were to understand how to prime their work first, use complementary colours, use the correct amount of paint, and achieve better results with various tools and brushes.
Construction
Finally, we ended with construction. We wanted the students to explore and experiment with the properties and characteristics of materials in making different structures while also making imaginative creations that seemed to be the students' favourite part of the course! We focused on junk couture using recyclable/recycled materials, and the students created hats, bags, clothes etc., which ended with some very entertaining fashion shows on our last week! It was evident from the work made in the final two weeks that the students had built up their confidence in their creative abilities, and we were amazed by the standard of their work.
We want to offer our gratitude to Lissivigeen NS for having us visit the school. We were so impressed by the students' enthusiasm to learn, and they fully embraced the lessons. Also, we would like to thank all the teachers for their support, help and positivity during the lessons and messy/busy clean-ups each week! Overall, it was a joy to provide the students and teachers with new skills and techniques, and we hope that the lessons sparked creative joy in everyone.
Check out the class pages to see more work!
We would like to say a Big Thank You to the Board of Management who paid for for this art project.