Thomas Bewick School project 2018

Karen Rann two sessions with Thomas Bewick 2018

 Funding from SCREAM has made it possible for artist Karen Rann to work on a designated and tailored project with Thomas Bewick School, Newcastle in 2018.  The ambition of the project with a class of 7 students from Key Stage 3 – 4 was to ‘bring the outside inside’.   Karen and the students created a ‘tree canopy’ that can be furled when not in use, but otherwise sat under for activities such as story-telling.   Materials used to make it were leaves the students had collected on nature walks.

Leaves were pressed into air-dry clay to show the veins and provide a shape to cut around.  Holes were made into the clay ‘leaves’ for hanging in the ‘tree canopy”

While some students didn’t like the feel of clay on their hands, for others it was their favourite activity: Danny “I think it’s cool”, Spencer “I think it is fantastic… because it was pretty lovely” “the clay leaves for the umbrella… was the best bit”, Lewis “We made a natural leaf umbrella, I thought it was great, I like making leaf prints of clay.”

The canopy was created with parts of a sun umbrella to which beech branches were attached.  Real leaves were used as templates to make card leaves that were then spray painted – more additions to the tree canopy which it’s possible to keep adding to making it an on-going project for the school.

John “my favourite part of the project was leaf printing because we use spray paints all over… we worked together and helped each other.” Lucy “the colours were the best… I enjoyed spraying paint because I love the blue and green mix.”