See You Outside

Magic Sunshine Prints

During our last morning at Idle Primary School we made some special prints with Class 2.  We called them 'Magic Sunshine Prints' but their real name is Cyanotypes. Cyan is another name for blue.  Cyanotypes are a kind of photography.  We placed leaves, grasses and flowers on the special paper outside in the sunshine, with a sheet of plastic over the top to hold things down in the wind which was quite blustery.  Here is a picture of Viv and some boys creating their cyanotype.

The sunshine makes the paper go dark blue except where the leaves have been, which stays pale blue or white.  Its like capturing the shadow of your object.  After a couple of minutes in the sun, you put the paper in a bath of water to fix the image.

The children from class 2 made lots of wonderful patterns with their leaves and petals.  Angie and Viv had collected all the green things from Buck Wood in the morning and brought them into school.  This was the opposite of last week when all the children were collected at school and brought to Buck Wood!

Here is a picture showing just three of the 14 amazing cyantoypes that the children made.

The ferns and the Wild Rose petals are especially beautiful, but you can spot Holly and Oak leaves too.

More Lovely Leaves

Here is another set of six beautiful leaves, this time they are ones made by children from Year 2 Idle Primary School.  You can see how the colours from the salvaged envelope paper make the pictures look different depending on whether they are blue or manila.

Well done Rebecca, Nathan, George, William, Harry and Lucy!

Can you see that an insect has chewed a hole in George's Ivy leaf?

Lovely Leaves

Here are six lovely leaves made on-site at Buck Wood by children from Year 1 Idle Primary School.  You can see how carefully the children have looked at the different leaf shapes and you can tell which tree they belong to.

Well done William, David, Ellie, Olivia, Courtney and Nathan!

Making Connections

Today we had a brilliant morning and afternoon at Idle Primary School, making lots of artwork with the children from Years 1 and 2.  There’ll be lots about that soon, and we’ll show you our pictures.  But in the meantime, on the way home Angie and Viv called in to Haworth to get a cup of tea in a café and they saw this Rabbit money-bank in a shop window.

Rabbits remind us of the children from Brackenhill  Primary school who were painting pictures of the rabbits at Ogden Reservoir in April, using our fantastic mud paint.  But what’s amazing is that this rabbit is made from blue and white china just like the plates the children from Idle Primary school were drawing last week!

Colourful Return To Buck Wood

On Tuesday The Mayfly returned to Buck Wood, dressed in her brightest colours.  The fabulous bunting the children made last week looks spectacular under the leafy green canopy.

 
Children from Year 1 and Year 2 were on the site of the old Open Air School all day long, with artists Angie and Viv and lots of helpers.  We looked all around where the school used to be, and found more pieces of old plates, medicine bottles and inkwells!  Next we went on a tour through the wood, looking at all the wonderful trees, and how their leaves are so many different shapes.  The children very carefully collected a few samples of leaves from each kind of tree to take back to our base.  We found Oak, Beech, Holly, Horse Chestnut, Sweet Chestnut, Silver Birch, Ash, Rowan and Sycamore, plus the shiny green ivy that grows all around.

The children know that paper is made from trees, and so if we recycle paper we are helping to save trees from being used up too quickly. The paper that Viv and Angie gave the children to use for their artwork was all collected from old envelopes.  We used the paper from the inside of the envelopes - there are Manila ones and dark blue ones and most of all, pale blue ones with loads of different small patterns.  All the children enjoyed looking carefully at the leaf shapes and then drawing them using Oil Pastels.  Angie and Viv think the leaf artworks are excellent and they are going to make them into a big  book.

 

Very Good Work

Here's another couple of our very good blue and white plates with their proud makers.
 

   

Blue And White Beauties

We'd like to show you all 30 of our lovely blue and white plates but there just isn't enough room. It was so very hard to choose the ones you can see below because we liked them all.

Well done Lucy, Haleemah, Jake, Emma, Cara-Leigh and Joel!
Well done all of Year 2!

Hello Idle Primary School!

More exciting news -  Artists Angie and Viv have started working with children from Idle Primary School on the See You Outside project.  Today Angie and Viv helped children from Year 2 to make some wonderful art and on Thursday it will be the turn of children from Year 1.

A few months ago we were looking at the site of the old Open Air School in Buck Wood and we found lots of small pieces of broken pottery.  We think they are bits of plates used by children from the old school when they were having their lunch.  Angie found a very unusual fragment that shows part of a picture of children having a picnic and round the outside is the Alphabet done in 'finger spelling' which is a kind of sign language used by deaf people.  Here is a photo of the pieces.  You can see the sign for A on the right:

We think this is very interesting and we have found out that lots of children used to have a plate with the Alphabet of letters around the outside of the plate and then further in, the finger spelling alphabet and then, in the middle a lovely picture.  Here is an example with some cats in the middle, aren't they great!

Today the children from Idle School have created their very own blue and white plate designs on paper plates. They did a wonderful job and everyone's design is completely different.  The patterns and pictures are all about the old school in Buck Wood and the creatures and plants found in the woodland nearby.

Year 2 also learned how to spell out a message using finger spelling.  The message said:

                                  "Greetings from Buck Wood Children!"

 

Feedback

We like to be sure our art workshops are providing great opportunities for learning new skills and for enjoying the outdoors.  So at the end of every session we ask those taking part to tell us what is good and to say if there are any problems.  Here is a sample of the feedback produced by the Salt Grammar group.

Under The Greenwood Trees

We can't get enough of these beautiful drypoint prints by the young people from Salt Grammar School.
None of the pupils had used an Intaglio process beforehand, and so it is a great achievement to create such accomplished artworks in such a short time and in an open air classroom as well!.

Erica and Shannon's work conveys the spirit of the sparkling and leafy undergrowth beneath the canopy of trees.

Claire and Lydia have both chosen to focus attention on the wonderful bluebells that carpet the woodland during May.

More Open Air Prints

Some more wonderful drypoint prints made en plein air on the site of Buck Wood Open Air School:

Adil has captured the different textures of vegetation, bark and pathways within Buck Wood.

Imogen and Laura have observed the growth patterns of trees and the outburst of new leaves in the Spring woodland.

Open Air Prints

Here are just a few of the fabulous Drypoint Prints made in our Open Air Studio, revealed in all their Viridian glory.

Jodie has done well to use so many different and expressive marks in her image.  Kiara's big leaf has a beautiful simplicity of line.

Vanessa has very carefully observed the bark on this tree, whilst Connor has depicted the ghostly image of the old school beneath the present day vegetation.

The Mayfly

During our open air printmaking day at Buck Wood we were concentrating so intently on making the prints we didn’t get much chance to take photos.  However Viv has done a brilliant job in capturing the day in the Photo Album over on the right ‘Printing In The Open Air’ so take a look and get a feel of what its like to make prints en plein air.


Here is our Gazebo Studio (now known as The Mayfly) in action on the site of the old Open Air School! 

Bradford Noth Area Committee has kindly provided funding from the Community Chest for our gazebo and other wet weather equipment, so a big Thank You to them.

The Open Air School Is Reborn For One Day

 
Buck Wood has a long and fascinating history.  One hundred years ago in 1908, an Open Air School was opened in the woods to provide a healthy environment for children suffering from poverty and illness. 
For over 30 years the woods gave health and happiness to thousands of children, with open-fronted classrooms and access to fresh air at all times.

A group of people called The Friends Of Buck Wood have done a great job of clearing away all the undergrowth on the site of the old school and revealing the actual spot where the classrooms used to be.
To find out more about the old school you can click the link ‘Buck Wood Open Air School’ under the photo albums in the right hand panel, where it says ‘Things we like’.

Our See You Outside project is all about learning to do art outdoors, and so we just had to take the opportunity to bring the Open Air School back to life for a brief moment and to capture the wonderful atmosphere of Buck Wood.  Like the ephemeral mayfly that lives for one day only, our outdoor printmaking classroom came into being for just a few hours last Friday.  Angie and Viv set up a gazebo on the old school site, followed by our portable etching press, work table and equipment.

Once again we were lucky with the weather and our young people from Salt Grammar School were able to take full advantage of the beautiful woods as inspiration for their Intaglio printmaking.  The group worked really hard, rising to the challenge of learning a new and complex skill, and their drypoint prints all turned out to be excellent and surprisingly varied.  The open air printmaking was a complete success!

Message In A Bottle

The children from Brackenhill Primary School have now finished all their art workshops with Angie and Viv.
They will still be contributing to this site and of course they will be attending our celebration event on Friday 11th July.

We thought it would be nice if the Brackenhill children could send a message to Salt Grammar School, telling about their experiences of making art outside.  Seeing as Ogden Water is a reservoir that provides drinking water to the local area, it seemed a great idea to send the messages in a water bottle, so thats what we did during the final art session at school.  The children wrote their messages in blue pen on strips of tracing paper to symbolise the flow of water and we made a label with a map of the reservoir and some information about the project.  Here's a couple of pictures of the bottle, you can just see the message strips inside.

 
                         


  

A Magical Day In Buck Wood

Thursday 8th May saw our group of 11 young people from Salt Grammar School making their first trip to Buck Wood in Thackley with Angie and Viv, along with Arts Project Officer Mrs Graham, and Dr Alvin, a local historian and Chair of the 'Friends of Buck Wood'.

Buck Wood is a wonderful green space with a very interesting past, and on Thursday, the fabulous warm sunny weather turned it into a magical outdoor art classroom.  There will be more information about Buck Wood's history in a later post and plenty more pictures of the artwork we made.  In the meantime, here are some photos that hopefully capture the spirit of our day outside.

The Edge of the Water

Dry stone walls and wooden fences are a feature of Ogden Reservoir.  We have enjoyed seeing the blue and grey water peeking over the top of a stone wall or through the slats of a wooden fence.  The water looks especially beautiful when the sun glitters and gleams on the dark surface.

Lukman has captured the rough wooden planks of the fence in this painting.

Nadia had never used a quill pen before but she has made a good drawing of the old stone wall and the trees across the water.

More Ogden Artwork from Brackenhill Children

The Ogden Water Sketchbooks are almost full and have turned out brilliantly with lots of beautiful paintings and drawings.  Angie and Viv are very impressed with the artworks especially when you realise that they were mostly created outside, often with only old tree trunks for tables and sometimes it was quite windy, chilly and damp.  These wonderful sketchbooks show that working out of doors, surrounded by nature is a great experience and everyone should try it.  You will notice loads of new colours, textures, sounds and smells.

Saffiyah's  lively reservoir spreads across two pages of her sketchbook.

This cheerful goose is by Noriea - she has used a goose quill pen to draw with.

Hanah has observed carefully the different trees and plants along the reservoir bank.

 

Earth Paint Rabbits from Ogden Water

Here is a selection of excellent rabbit pictures created with the amazing earth paint from Ogden Water.

      

       
       Obeid has made a very colourful painting of a rabbit in the sunshine.

      

      
       Nayyir's rabbit has a wonderful shy face.

      
       This rabbit by Zain looks a bit angry! 

Hello Salt Grammar School

Exciting news!  A new school is joining the See You Outside Project on Thursday.  Young people from Salt Grammar School are coming on an outdoor art trip with Viv and Angie to Buck Wood in Bradford.  The children from Brackenhill Primary School say ‘HELLO ‘ and hope the trip has good weather.  Next week the Ogden Water group will be sending a special message in a bottle from Brackenhill to Salt school, but before then they say ‘have a look at the photo albums and see what we've been doing’.

This is what Buck Wood looks like right now: 

                   

The fresh new leaves are like green lace and drifts of bluebells are coming out all around the wood.

Return To Ogden Water

Our second visit to Ogden Water was a great success.  The weather forecast was for plenty of rain and even hail so we felt very lucky to have lots of lovely sunshine instead!  We were able to work outside all day.

To begin with, we made a special kind of lovely brown paint.  A few weeks ago Angie and Viv collected some earth from beside the reservoir.  The earth was dried out and sieved to get rid of bits of grass and lumps.  Then we ground the earth in a mortar and pestle. Everyone took a turn at grinding the earth to a fine powder.  After that we added some Gum Arabic to bind the powdered earth into paint.  We also put in some water to dilute it and a drop of lavender oil to make the paint smell nice.

There are lots of wild rabbits at Ogden Reservoir. You can see them all the time running around and nibbling on the grass.  We all know that the wild rabbits live in holes in the ground and so we thought it would be a good idea to use the brown earth paint to make pictures of the rabbits in our sketchbooks.  It was fun and everyone enjoyed looking closely at the bunnies.

Here is a selection from the feedback comments made by the children at the end of the day.

New Work

Everyone made beautiful artwork in their sketchbooks last wednesday, using lots of different materials and subjects.  Tohid made a careful study of the unusual structures that connect the reservoir to the dam and used coloured pencils to show the detail of all the stone work and the iron grid at the top.

    

Aisha has made a wonderful study of the bridge that curves along the overflow from the reservoir.

   

Iqra worked very carefully to make this painting of the strange looking Muscovy Duck:

   

Kellan used the Pentel brushes to make this sensitive study of a Mallard Duck on the water:

    

A Busy Morning at Brackenhill

There were so many different and exciting things going on at school on Wednesday morning, everywhere was full! So we turned the dining room into a temporary 'studio', with big plastic tablecloths to keep the paint under control. Before starting work, we had a chance to see our blog and make comments. You can read these under the previous post below.

Everyone worked hard all morning, making beautiful new pictures in the manila sketchbooks we made ourselves two weeks ago. During last week's trip to Ogden Water we took lots of photos to use at school. Angie made some really big prints of them to use as reference and you could almost imagine you were still at the reservoir. We also had many photos of ducks as they are so popular with everyone and interesting to paint and draw.

Three cheers for Viv who had sharpened all the crayon pencils!

On Monday we hope to post some pictures of the new work, but in the meantime here's a lovely duck feather to admire.

Our first day at Ogden Reservoir

Annie's Duck

Yesterday we were very brave and spent the day at Ogden Water. It was very cold and damp with hardly any sunshine for our walk around the reservoir. Along the way we stopped to make artworks in our sketchbooks, the ones we made last week in class.

We used a new kind of paintbrush called Aquash made by Pentel. Its like a felt pen but you can fill it up with watercolour paint and choose your own colours. The Aquash brushes are easy to carry around and you don't need to bring water bottles or palettes. We made pictures of the dark wintery trees, the golden moor and the greyish blue water.

After lunch we used quill pens made from goose feathers to draw the ducks and geese that live at Ogden Water. It was fun to make pictures of birds using feathers. We drew with black ink and white ink on the Manila paper.

Our drawing ink took a long time to dry because the weather was so chilly and damp so while we waited, we watched the ducks fighting over bread. We also collected lots of small, beautiful duck feathers. Back in the Ogden Water Education Room it was lovely and cosy as we packed our bags ready for the coach journey back to Brackenhill. Here are three ducks drawn by Shubhon.

Ogden Reservoir

Hello Brackenhill!

Wednesday 9th April is the start of See You Outside our exciting project helping children to explore the outdoors through visual art and creative writing.

Artists Angie Rogers and Viv Owen will visit Brackenhill Primary School in Bradford and help to make your very own sketchbooks ready to use next week on our trip to Ogden Water, a reservoir on the moors near Halifax.