St Thomas Primary School Artworks - Introduction
Jacob Andrews
Jacob Holmes
Harry Gill
Cowick Street Environmental Improvements - Page 1
Background
Exeter City Council appointed artist Andrew Stacey to work with year 5 pupils from St Thomas Primary school to generate ideas and help them to understand the process of design. The aim of the project was to engage the next generation in the design of their environment; giving children the opportunity to respond to St Thomas in a constructive and creative manner. Following this exhibition the artworks will be developed further with the schoolchildren to create a frieze or mosaic for the wall of the new recycling area to be built at the entrance to the St Thomas Shopping Centre.
Andrew undertook a series of six workshops with year 5 pupils with the support of their teacher, Joanne Withers. The workshops started with a focused walk around St Thomas which was followed by classroom art sessions engaging with the following themes;
- Mapping - the pupils were shown local maps, and invited to create their own personalised maps based on their walk around St Thomas.
- History - the children took part in role play and did paintings based on research into local history, including the blitz, the floods of the sixties, and past industries that have helped to shape St Thomas.
- Transport - they then produced paintings based on transport of the past, present and future, which were colour coded red, yellow and blue respectively.
- Future Proposals - finally they imagined proposals for creative and playful enhancements of familiar sites in St. Thomas.
Miss Withers said that the children really enjoyed the project; 'It was inspirational for the children to work so closely with a professional artist. Many of the children became more confident in being creative because of Andrew's positive, supportive guidance. They liked his 'everybody is an artist' approach. The class' work reflects their thoughts about the past, present and potential future of St Thomas.
The children really enjoyed the project:
Leighton Richards said 'The project was really fun, especially the map making. I learnt to draw a lot better.'
Harry Gill enjoyed working with Andrew, he said ‘the best bit was when we drew a picture of the future of St Thomas.'
Nadia Wojdala said that she ‘learned a lot about St Thomas in the olden days' and Nathan Smith said that 'the art project taught me that I was a bit better than I thought!'
Olivia Mitchell said that 'I learned that everybody is good at art in all different ways.'
Click here to view page 2 - More artworks from year 5