Six School Art Club

This project was in conjunction with the Morley Partnership Schools Project which includes Morley Victoria, Gildersome Primary, Fountains Primary, Asquith Primary, Drighlington Primary and Churwell Primary. (Churwell Primary hosted the project).

Each week for six weeks, selected children from each school came to Churwell Primary for an afterschool art club. We used the art in Leeds Art Gallery as a basis for the activities. Each week we learnt about different artists, techniques and genres to help us understand art in a broader way. We then planned a trip to Leeds Art Gallery in June where some schools travelled on the bus together.

We explored the differences between abstract, semi abstract and realism in painting and we looked at the sculptural work of Henry Moore. We also looked at the recent exhibition by Jill McKnight. Her recent exibition at Leeds Gallery is called Desire Lines where the stories and songs of different generations of Leeds residents were collected into a body of work about connections, and the interwoven meanings of ordinary life.

Tonal Study of Henry Moores Reclining Woman outside Leeds Art Gallery.

We used our sketchbooks as a tool of visual investigation and as time went on our relationship with our sketchbook became more personal for each child.

On gallery day we met at 10am. We started our day with an introduction from the in house Artist who showed us all how to make sketchbooks with one sheet of paper. We then went down to the Ziff Gallery and the children used their sketchbooks to draw their favourite things. Damian Hirst’s Sheep in formaldehyde was a big attraction. The kids were really engaged for quite a while and we then went upstairs to the Jill McKnight exhibition. The children layed on the floor again and drew what they liked and one boy who was hungry drew the speaker in the corner where the old songs were being played from. He said ‘there… you wanted ordinary life, well there it is.’ He had drawn a simple observation of an ordinary, functioning speaker, playing songs from the past about ordinary life – I think he saw the connection and irony of that act. We then walked to park square to eat lunch, and then walked up to Leeds Museum to draw animals from the living world exhibition. The kids were tired by then, so it was a really relaxed activity.

I feel this project really worked well because it supported full accessibility. Whatever the background, each child learnt they could access art on a local level. Leeds Art Gallery is free and all anyone needs to do is catch a bus to attend. They also only need a simple bit of paper and pencil to draw what they see and a bit of understanding about what they are looking at to feel connected. This project in its simpleness, achieved that goal and their sketchbooks made it more personal because they understood their book was their space.

On reflection, I felt it had been a successful activity. I had been flexible and respectful to the fact that getting six schools in one place for just one hour after school each week was a lot of energy, time and effort. The staff from the schools really supported the kids and that effort paid off. One moment in the Ziff Gallery with one girl has stuck with me. She was trying to draw Edward Armitage’s The Siren from 1888. And she kept drawing the line down her back over and over again. I asked why she kept rubbing it out, and she said she couldn’t get it right. I told her not to worry about it but she kept trying and then said ‘It’s because I write in cursive, I just can’t get it right.’ I asked her why writing in cursive would stop her from being able to draw the line, she didn’t answer but what I think she was trying to say was she didn’t know how to draw the line outside of knowing how to write. Which supports my deep conviction that every child should learn to draw in school.

Edward Armitage - The Siren 1888 Leeds Art Gallery

I received feedback from one school saying that the children had said they were ‘proud’ of their sketchbooks.… I think that’s all that matters to me because if they felt pride, they felt connected to a part of themselves and art was the connection.