Students exhibit their work in WCAC

The whole school took part in a group exhibition held in West Cork Art Centre, Uillinn, Cork.

1916 Centenary Project: 100 years of Art and History Exhibition which opened on Friday 29 April at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre.

West Cork Primary Schools explored local, national and international historical events and drew inspiration from artists and art movements of the past 100 years.

Junior room:

We chose the theme Colourful Seventies because of the explosion of colour and shape associated with the period 1970 to 1975. Colourful, glossy and glittering clothes, bellbottoms, afro style hair styles and disco balls were the order of the day.

We chose Patrick Heron, because, to us he expressed what we wanted to portray. He once wrote: “I think this world is magical. Colour, form, space, relationships – these elevate life. They energise. They elevate my whole consciousness”.

He worked with blocks of colour in an abstract way to give very lively, vivid pictures.

In developing ideas for our art work we explored images from the era 1970 – 1975. We discussed these images –colours, shapes, our likes, our dislikes, comparisons and what they reminded us of. We then printed out a variety/cross section of these images.

Now we were ready to start working on our artwork.

We made prints of these images in two ways.
Firstly we put paint on a flat surface; we put a sheet of paper on top of this; we then traced an image on top of this. When we removed the sheet of paper from the painted flat surface we had our print.
For the second print experience we cut out images and stuck them on wood. We put paint on the picture and stamped on our prints.
Then we cut out sections from these prints and mounted them on black sugar paper, paying attention to colour patterns and shape. We finished with a disco ball in the centre.

We used these blocks of colour as used by Patrick Heron. Colours big and bold were essential in his work. Thus it was from him that we got our inspiration. We felt that his art style and blocks of colour clearly demonstrated our interpretation of the era 1970 to 1975.

Senior room:

Chosen Theme and Inspiration: We chose the Flower Power theme because there were lots of flowers and colours. The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude inspired us because their art was unique. We like the idea of wrapping, it was very unique. Their art was also very different as it is very temporary.

“I am an artist, and I have to have courage……. Do you know that I don’t have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they’re finished. Only the preparatory drawings, and collages are left, giving my works and almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain.” (Christo)

Developing our ideas: We really liked the orange curtain across the valley. This inspired our own art as we used orange when selecting our, tie dye colours. We brainstormed, created mind maps, and researched the artists and their work, researched the flower power era that began in Haight Ashbury, California, in order to develop our ideas.

Making the Art Work:

Drew samples of our designs on paper, spirals, flowers, VW signs etc.
Tie dyed strips of cloth, we marked our own with symbols instead of writing our names.
Drew designs on the cloth, we worked on our own strips, the symbols made it easy for us to recognise our own.
Wrapped our models.
Created a working drawings book on the project.

“When I was researching the artists, I found out they were both born on the same day.” (Ciaran Forsythe, 3^rd class)