’Just like moons and like suns, with the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high, still I’ll rise.’
To understand who we are and learn to love ourselves is tricky. 4A’s time in the art studio has been a gentle invitation to pause, take a deep breath, and explore our individual hopes and fears.
To appreciate our uniqueness, commenced with really looking at ourselves in creating our self portraits. There were challenges in the process. Working lightly, 4A discovered their eyes are halfway down their face, the ear starts around where their eyes are and finish in line with the nostrils. Lips end where the iris in the eye is. Eyebrows lead into the nose. We then added hair.
We then used watercolour to block in the many tints and tones of our face and hair. The results are impressive.
To be ‘free’ to be ourselves, to know ourselves and love ourselves is definitely a process. Together, we reflected on where we felt free to be ourselves. Who made us feel strong and courageous? Where did we experience a peace and joy in being ourselves? What and who inspired us?
A bird- not caged- but free became a way of representing our hopes and an attempt to capture what makes us feel free. Our own drawn bird outlines, once cut out became the template we used to draw around onto cardboard. As our expressions and body language show, perseverance was required!
It was important that our drawings were simple, as we would be ‘colouring in’ with acrylic paints. We recognised the importance of brush choice, selecting a thick brush for backgrounds and a fine brush for detail and where control was required.
Our cardboard bird – representing our hopes, dreams and what it means to be free- was then used as a template for our t-shirt design. These t-shirts would be worn for Friday’s celebration and dance performance. Consideration as to where to place the bird was encouraged before outlining in pencil. The design was then pencilled on.
We used fabric paints on our t-shirts, blocking the colours and applying our colour mixing knowledge to make secondary colours. Paint marker was used for the writing.
An opportunity to use collage and their imaginations resulted in some glorious compositions where colour and words, backgrounds and drawings expressed their hopes, dreams, peace and joy in being themselves.
In response to the questions ‘What have you enjoyed most about Arts Fortnight? What have you learnt about yourself? What are you proud of? 4A shared:
