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Hampshire Woodland week

 

During Hampshire's woodland week Pennington Junior school had two visiting artists, this worked wonderfully with our Heritage project.


Graham Olive came into yr5 to show them how to work with chalk pastels. First Graham explained how the pastels were made with chalk and pigment (colour) and how the paper they were using had special "teeth" on it to grip the pastels. Graham then took them through the picture step by step.
After showing the children how tohold the chalk with three fingers rather than in a pencil like grip, the "painting" (Graham calls himself a painter as paints and pastels both contain pigment) began by putting in 1 large tree just off centre, so that there would not be the same space left on either side of the picture. The background of the picture was then filled in with blue, with white added to it at the bottom. The foreground was painted in a warm green, as warm colours lift them selves off the page (Graham explained that warm colours are reds, oranges and yellows) and the mid ground was filled with a cool green (cool colours are black, grey and blue.) The next stage was to shake any excess dust onto a piece of paper on the floor rather than blow it, as the chalk could get in peoples eyes or be inhaled. Graham then explained how to smudge in the pastels using the palm of their hands, saving fingers for smaller bits like tree branches. They then put in fence posts and went over any tree outline that had been smudged. For the finishing touches they added green to the tree for leaves and yellow to the foot of the tree for large grasses.

 

Olivia came in to talk to year 4 about weaving withies. First she showed the children a number of slides about how withies are grown and cut and the variety of different colours that they come in and the work she had done with other children .She also showed the children a range of things that she had made from withies, such as a basket, a mask and a lobster pot. Some of the children then stayed with Olivia to practice their withy weaving skills, whilst others went with Miss Jones to use a variety of materials to weave small baskets.


Along with the visiting artists we also had a wonderful story teller Graham Rogers, who told the story 'The Green Knight'. The children listened to his inspiring tell.

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