Stopfordian 2010–2011 - Stockport Grammar School

The Stopfordian 2010–2011
AUTHOR VISIT: JACKIE MORRIS
The author and illustrator Jackie Morris visited the school on
Tuesday 5th October to talk to the Juniors and Infants about
her work.
BIOGRAPHY
Jackie was born in Birmingham and from the age of six she
knew she wanted to be an artist. She watched her father
drawing a picture of a bird and thought it was magical to see
the image appear.
She spent three years at Bath Academy of Art and then set off
for London to work as an illustrator. She has won numerous
awards and her work has been exhibited widely in galleries
throughout the UK and as far afield as Australia. She has work
in the public collection at the National Library of Wales.
Jackie lives in Pembrokeshire, Wales, has two children, three
dogs and more cats than she can count.
THE PRESENTATIONS
Jackie spoke to the Infants about her book, ‘Tell me a Dragon’.
Whilst she read the text the children were enthralled with
images from the pages of the book that were displayed on the
screen. The timetable for the rest of the day was suspended
as the children were desperate to write about their own
dragons and had vivid ideas as to their names, appearance
and characteristics.
A similar scenario unfolded in the afternoon when the Juniors
were held spell bound by her book ‘The Ice Bear’. The story
was poignant and the illustrations were breathtaking. The
children had a magical day – just what education should be all
about.
J. Mercer
YEAR 6 ART DAY
At the beginning of the workshop we looked at some ways
animals have been painted in various cultures from Jeff’s
collection of art postcards. These ranged from the Lineas de
Nasca Uca in Peru (the desert line-drawings), wooden fire
sculptures by Phil Bews (The Phoenix), and drawings by Picasso.
Juxtaposed to a realistic painting of a lion by Sir Edwin
Landseer (1849) was a painting by Australian artist Djambu
Barra Barra of a kangaroo (1999). The pupils also looked at
cave paintings of animals, a wire ‘flock of sheep’by Sophie
Ryder, a fibre glass maquette for King Kong by Nick Monro,
paintings and drawings by the Tinga Tinga tribe in Africa,
particularly by artist Jaribuni of a leopard, next to an 8 th
Century drawing of a lion from the Book of Durrow (Trinity
College Dublin), an equestrian statue in Madrid, and finally a
series of modern Aboriginal paintings of animals.
The pupils then worked from a variety of pictures of animals,
birds, insects and reptiles (one for each group), drawing first
very large in pencil to fill an A3 sheet. These were then
worked over in ball point pen to increase the power and
visibility of the drawing, which were then stained with
coloured inks – generally dark blue or green for the
background, and yellow/red for the animal. This ‘undercoat’
was then worked into with the dot technique of the Aborigine
artists, using cotton buds dipped into acrylic paints. It was
important that the dots were placed close together so that the
runs of dots created lines and patterns dictated by the outline
of the shape of the chosen animal and the patterns seen
within them.
The pupils worked hard during the day but every child left the
workshop feeling proud of their achievements and looking
forward to continuing the process in the weeks ahead.
J. Mercer
YEAR 5 ART DAY
The aim of this workshop was to encourage observational
drawing, enlarging the image, layering of materials, and an
introduction of the batik process.
Each group was given a collection of different leaves – laurel,
holly and Oregon grape – and they began the session by looking
at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe through a book and collection
of postcards. On A3 paper, the small leaf had to be enlarged to
fill the paper, in itself quite a difficult task for the pupils. They
used pencil first, and overlaid the ‘correct’ lines with ball point
pen, then erasing any errors.
Then came the wax layering, starting always with the lightest
colour, yellow, and overlaying this with subsequent colours, i.e.
green or orange to obtain a richer ‘green ’or ‘orange’ than could
be obtained by the simple use of the colour itself. Because wax
is a transparent medium, the pen drawing was still visible. After
this layer, other layers, such as reds and blues were carefully
applied to darken or enrich the colours and, in this case, leaving
the veins of the leaves yellow.
Next was the process to ‘distress’ the paper by crumpling it up
and then carefully flattening it out again, taking care not to tear
the creased paper. The creases fractured the paper surface and
also the layers of wax. They then stained their work with inks –
106 Junior School