I was very excited that I was asked to teach an art class at our public library's Local History Week! The project was called Bringing History Alive Artfully and this was my sample and the intro information
Create an A4 piece of collaged art honouring an ancestor or special place or event in local history. Your finished piece will be able to be hung by ribbon, mounted on canvas or a book cover, or perhaps framed. We will spend 2 hours exploring new ways to celebrate local history artfully by using paper collage techniques and sharing a variety of ideas for mixed media embellishments and composition.
It was on Tuesday night and I am happy to say that we all had a wonderful time. I started the evening feeling 95% excited and 5% nervous, but that soon passed - and I was introduced as "a talented mixed media artist" which was so lovely. I said I'd take a maximum of 12 in the class, and we reached that number.
I gave them all a base pack of papers and class notes
I talked to them for a while about different papers, layering, embellishments, gel mediums, and composition tips. Then it was their turn. It was great to see everyone dive in and have a go, and walk around looking at each others' work and share experiences. Click on any photo to see it larger
And here's all of their work together at the end of the session
They were all very happy with how much they achieved and it's wonderful to see the variety in what they created. It was very rewarding for my first formal experience of taking a class and I hope I get a chance to do it again sometime.
Thank you Lynnie for a wonderful first art experience. It was such fun!. I really want to do more now & try out some of the ideas you gave us. You were a great teacher, so organised, encouraging and inspiring.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely! 12 is a good number in a group. I used to teach English as a foreign language and 12 was a perfect number to set up teams for activities. I bet all those ladies (and the young girl I spotted in the photos) had a ball and I'm glad to hear you were not feeling too nervous. There were some truly wonderful pages created with those old photos! Did you supply the materials, Lynette, or did they have to bring their own?
ReplyDeleteThey had a needs list that included bringing a copy of a photo and some papers in a controlled colour palette - I suggested black & white or brown & cream + one other colour. I provided the base pack plus we had lots of variety of wallpaper (textures and colours), postage stamps, old magazines, large print books - they didn't need to bring much :-)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good solution! One thing that puts me off running classes (maybe in the future) is that it would be unaffordable to supply all the materials to everybody, but I like the idea of your students bringing some of it. It makes it more personal for them as well.
ReplyDelete