Lesson 5 (20th May 2014)

Today we had a very interesting lesson. We started at Sint Baafskathedraal which is a famous Cathedral in Gent containing lots of beautiful religious artworks – including the famous ‘Het Lam Gods’ by the Van Eyck Brothers. We were told lots of interesting facts about the painting, especially the missing panel. The church was beautiful and I was really fascinated with it’s layout due to the fact I am studying to be a primary school teacher of Catholic Schools, and it was good to get a chance to see how a church could be explored with children from an artistic point of view.

We were given a card from a board game and told to find something in the church that is similar to the card ( a great idea to do with children). This is the card Kelly and I were given:

We agreed that Catholic symbolism could be seen in the baby’s cradle to the story of Jesus, and it’s white colour portrayed the innocence of the child. We found a statue of Mary holding Jesus as a baby to link this too. Unfortunately we weren’t permitted to take any photographs inside of the Cathedral to show evidence of this. We also linked the trees in the picture to the view that God created nature and there was a patchwork quilt of a tree inside the church to match this with.

After visiting the Cathedral we went to the Design Museum. On the way to the museum we walked through the city and found out some interesting facts about Gent, and it’s design. We thought about the word ‘design’ and what it meant. Everything that we can see in this city and everywhere in the world has been designed by someone. The museum was a great way for us to see this. My favourite part of the museum was the James Dyson exhibition, a British inventor and industrial designer. He invented the bagless vacuum cleaner. These vacuum cleaners are very popular at home in Ireland.

On the way round the museum we were given a sheet to fill in and it was filled with ideas for how we would explore museums with young children. This was extremely beneficial.

I have to say over the past few months I have really enjoyed these Art Classes, i have gained a new confidence in teaching Art and can’t wait to get home and put this into practice! 

Class No.4 (1st April 2014)

In today’s lesson we looked at comic strips. Comic Strips are popular to use at home in Ireland in an Art Lesson as they are easy to link with other subjects across the curriculum. For example, a child can use a comic strip to tell a story in literacy, or to develop an alternate ending to a story they may already know. It was interesting to find out that there are many famous comics that are of Belgian origin such as ‘Tin Tin’ and ‘The Smurfs’. Today we looked at Nello and Patrasche ‘A Dog of Flanders’ as an example of the famous comics.

 While looking at the comic strips, my attention was brought back to the theme of our blogs ‘A Search for Happiness’. Comic Strips are full of light-hearted humour and are a really nice thing to look at with children. Also in getting them to create their own comic strips, it will help them to develop their own sense of humour. As a class we then had a go at creating our own comic strips, which I found really interesting. I thought back to some of the comic strips we have at home in the U.K and Ireland and there wasn’t much of a difference between them and the Belgian comics – I will definitely use comic strips in an Art Class at home now!

Art Lesson No.3 (25th March 2014)

In today’s Art Class we looked at different media resources and apps that we can use in the classroom such as:

• ·         Screencast matic;
• ·         Tony B Machine;
• ·         Incredibox;
• ·         Voice Thread;
• ·         Flixel;
• ·         And Photosplash.

We then had to come up with various ways we could use these resources in a Primary School classroom in our home countries using local famous pieces of Art. The first picture myself and the other Irish girls chose was a picture called ‘Going Home’ by Jim McDonald. Jim McDonald is famous for his portrayal of the Titanic, the men from Belfast who built her and the area they lived in. Like them, he worked in the shipyard that built and launched the ‘World’s Most Famous Ship’.

 As a group, we thought that a good idea when using this picture for Art in a Primary School Classroom would be to let the children use the online composers ‘Tony B’ or ‘Incredibox’ to set music to the artwork to depict the feelings of the characters in the painting.

The next famous Irish Artwork we chose was ‘The Book of Kells’.  The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the Holy Bible by Celtic Monks. It contains lots of beautiful Celtic Artwork. Here are some examples:

 We agreed that if we were teaching to a young class we would like to put a large sheet of paper on the floor of the classroom. After looking at looks of different Celtic designs within the book, each child will add their own design – a simple pattern – to the sheet one at a time. A ‘Stop motion movie’ will then be created after each child draws their design to show the progression of the composition from start to finish.

I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the lesson as it gave me plenty of great ideas for teaching art in the classroom. I was also introduced to new artworks from different countries and also some of the class were able to contribute their own multi-media resources to the rest of us. Before this class, I was a bit afraid to explore using ICT in art lessons as I don’t have much confidence in my computer skills. However, now I see that it can be a fun and enjoyable experience and can’t wait to try it out with a class someday!

For the remainder of the class we painted our Puppets from the last lesson and were allowed to keep them so we can use them for teaching purposes. Here is the progression of my puppet:

The REAL first lesson! :) (Class date - 11th Feb 2014)

Although I missed our first class, I thought it would be wise to go back and have a look at some of my classmates blog’s to catch up on what I missed in the introductory lesson. A lot of people began their blog’s expressing their views on what that initially thought that the class would be like – that we would have been sitting at desks and drawing – similar to a typical art class at home. I have had some art classes at my university at home – St. Marys University College Belfast so I knew that this form of class was not to be expected. Learning to teach art to primary children, in my opinion, should be activity done, and this is why I was happy to hear that my class mates spent their first art lesson outside of the classroom setting, in the heart of the beautiful Belgian city, Gent.

(My first impression of Gent, which is also my favourite part of the city.)

The class looked at photography and were expected to bring a camera with them to take pictures. Two types of photographing methods were discussed - The Slinkachu; Macro Photography Method (enlarging an object in an image) and the second was aiming to make Gent look like a ‘Duck Tape City’. I looked at some of my classmates examples for this and I found these photographs very interesting. Although funding in schools wouldn’t be able to provide a camera for each child in a class, it would still be a good idea to take some photographs as a teacher and talk to the class about them, depending on what your theme was for that given lesson.

                              (Slinkachu image I admired online whilst doing research for the blog)

My classmates were asked to photograph things they came across that were typically Belgian. This made me think of the main theme for our blog which is ‘A Search for Happiness’  - as things that are typically Belgian should make native Belgians happy when they see them, as they would be proud to be reminded that they are from such a beautiful country. I then began to think on my homeland, Ireland, and all of the ‘typical impressions’ that you would find there to represent the country. Although I am from the city of Belfast, I wasn’t thinking of the city when thinking about these impressions because when anyone from anywhere in the world thinks of green grass and the landscapes we have there.

Some typical Belgian impressions:                           Some typical Irish impressions:

Cliffs of Moher, County Clare.

Mount Errigal, Country Donegal

 

 

These impressions link to the theme of the blog as I seek to find happiness in my new home of Gent, yet if feeling homesick, happiness is already found in the impressions of my home country. This exercise has been really beneficial – I’m glad I looked back over the lesson! I look forward to updating my blog for the next lesson! 

First Art Lesson at Artevelde Hogeschool - Puppetry. (18th Feb 2014)

We began looking at Puppetry in our previous art lesson and were shown different facts about puppetry in Belgium, like how Luk De Bouyler reinvented puppetry in Gent and about the Pierke Pierlala story, which I would like to see during my time on Erasmus here. This made me think back to my childhood and how I would have seen the puppet show ‘Punch and Judy’ numerous times. I grew up in Northern Ireland and I feel that my country is influenced by both British and Irish cultures, due to this I will be making reference to both cultures throughout my blog, even though I consider myself as Irish, I cannot ignore that there was a British cultural influence in my upbringing – and this is the reason that I would have watched these puppet shows.

One thing I noticed as a young child watching ‘Punch and Judy’ – which were various short sketches about Mr. Punch and his wife Judy; was that the design of the puppets were quite dramatic and often frightened me with their bulging eyes, long noses, heavy make-up and Victorian clothing:

 (Example of Punch and Judy Puppets taken from Google Images)

Due to this whilst making my puppet in art class I have decided to make my puppet more child friendly, meaning I could use it in a classroom. However, I do appreciate the dramatic effect that these ‘scary’ puppets give as I studied Drama at High School – I just feel as a teacher of young children, a ‘prettier’ puppet would be more effective in assisting me with a lesson.

We then went on to look at the ‘Festival of Gent’ which takes place yearly involving puppetry. It reminded me of the ‘Festival of Fools’ that takes place in the city of Belfast, where I live. The streets of Belfast City Centre and Cathedral Quarter come alive for five days every May to the sound of laughter and the sight of acrobatics, music and comedy. Artists from around the world come to perform at one of Belfast’s most popular events – the annual street theatre festival celebrating the international language of laughter. (Which I feel ties in with the theme of the blog – A Search for Happiness)

(The ‘Festival of Fools’ advertising poster in Belfast, with a puppet on it.)

I feel that focusing on Puppetry through art is a great idea for use in the classroom. Lots of cultural exploration can be involved and it could be linked with lots of other subjects too, such as Literacy. The children could be focused on a certain book and they could make some of the main characters into puppets and use them for learning.

I also liked the Clay dictation we did today and feel it would help the children to be very creative and to think independently.

(Image I took of my piece of clay before adaptation).