Brittany the artist

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Nature prints

Student	Brittany and classmates	Date	26 & 29 May 2008
Topic	The arts: visual arts, science, living world, ecology, planet earth and beyond, earth systems	Observer	Libby (teacher) Helen (arts and EfS advisor) Rob (cameraman)

How we created opportunities for learning

The children will learn the technique of printing.
The children will print using plants we saw and experienced on our camps.
The children will explore the school environment to find native plants; we will name them and talk about their habitat.

Background

Having completed our sky-earth-vegetation paintings, sewn on them, and torn their edges we needed to move onto the next step of our project.

Plants and plant life had been a feature at both camp venues and we had brought back some plants, seeds, and pods to help us recall them.

We looked at the acacia seed pods and the furry leaved “Shepherds Friend”. We looked at photographs of the plants around us on our camp.

Helen talked to us about the printing process and we decided we needed some new material to work with.

Our school grounds have many native plants, which are what we mostly saw on camp.
(video clip 7)

We gathered tussock, lancewood/horoeka, tarata/lemonwood, akeake, and five finger/ whauwhaupaku – all growing near our doorstep. We talked about their features and names.

Helen gave us a demonstration of the printing process. She talked about inking up and using an old magazine to lay the plant material on while inking up. We talked about positive and negative images, stencils, and the “wow” moment when our prints were revealed.

Learning story

Brittany did not like the sticky feel of the printers ink. We were working on the flat table top for printing. She wanted to wash her hands and made many trips to the bathroom. She said she was finished after a very short attempt.

Helen talked to her and encouraged her to have another turn at printing, and after much persuasion she did and this time she really enjoyed herself, she forgot about the feel of the ink and having to wash her hands. (video clip 8)

We tried more printing a few days later and Brittany had another attempt. We used brown paper for the background and Brittany built on her knowledge from the previous session, remembering about using the magazine for inking up and using the roller.

(Clicking on image opens full size version)

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