During the Danes Hill School Arts Week, I joined year 6 to lead a 3D workshop. The theme, suggested in advance by art teacher Louise Hight was “Carnival”. We had discussed the idea of Chinese style “Dragons” that could be made and used by the class in a dance to be performed. I discussed the timing with the group – we had to complete them within the school day. I explained that they would have to work fast and be very focussed to achieve this.
After initial discussion the children split into 4 groups in the art room and designed their Dragons using oil pastels on large sheets of paper.
We moved outside and impressively following their designs the year 6’s used withies to construct the ‘skeleton’ of the dragon. (Withies are long flexible willow twigs, for example see Willow Man by Serena de la Hey, in Somerset.)
The structure was then covered with white tissue and PVA glue.
The coloured tissue was the last addition, still following the initial drawings.
We were running out of time but the year 6’s kept focussed and worked very hard completing the dragons by the end of the day with enough time and energy to try them out.