Arty Giraffes

To round off the year, the children have been immersed in Art Week that followed the theme of Giraffes (it was World Giraffe Day on Wednesday, 21st June). For children across the school, Art Week started with a short inspirational video about David Hockney’s current exhibition. This is an immersive show at London's Lightroom, which takes the audience on a journey through 60 years of the artist's work. The work is projected around the single room and viewers become immersed in the art. The children watched a little snippet of the show and people’s reactions to it, and they too were oohing and aahing and were totally mesmerised and in awe of how emotional and magical art can be.

The Upcycle Scrapheap Challenge then officially took off with a buzz of anticipation as each year group one at a time, collected their allocated scrap and took it to visit our artist inspiration, Maggie Otieno. Maggie is a phenomenal Kenyan Sculptor who has exhibited her work all over the world during her 30 year career. Maggie told the children a little bit about her artistic approach of creating with discarded things; one man’s rubbish, is another man’s treasure. Knowing our Art project was all about giraffes, and World Giraffe Day, she quickly got the children talking about giraffes and their special features.

With the first group of children, she mapped out a giraffe on the ground. Together, they looked through a pile of scrap metal and chose pieces to start the framework. Each class then added more scrap metal, which Maggie welded together, and the BNIS Giraffe was born. The children were surprised when they were asked to carry their sketch books to Monday afternoons assembly! Mrs Gould challenged us all to sketch along to her instructions as she too drew a hidden picture! At the end all was revealed and the shapes we had been drawing turned into a tower of giraffes! Then to much excitement, our BNIS Giraffe was carried in. With all children having contributed to it across the day, it was a joy to see this collaborative piece come to life. Our first day left everyone motivated and brave to explore, create and think critically.

Now equipped with plenty of ideas, the children’s creative journeys to assemble their own Scrap Giraffe began. The children had a chance to delve into their scrap and respond to the materials, and start to see giraffe characteristics in the different objects. They have taken a deep dive into giraffes to understand them better; looking at factual information and also visual information, using art and different art mediums to explore their understanding and of course, different artistic techniques. All this was further enriched by Nahashon, a local artist, who visited Year 5 as well as Tom Hartley (a safari guide) giving a giraffe talk to FS2 children and some documentaries shared by Reteti Elephant Sanctuary (who have rescued some young giraffes).

In class groups, the children have created many versions of giraffes using their scrap and each time they have reflected on what is working and what is not as successful. Collaboratively they have agreed on final designs and Thursday and Friday have been days of assembling their creations.

In Early Years, the children got to texture the background boards. They had a fantastic time exploring painting effects (while wearing large t-shirts to keep the mess to a minimum). They too have been working with scrap, though on a much smaller scale, creating bugs and flowers to add to the ‘giraffe scene’ the rest of the school will create.

As this is a work in progress that is yet to come together, like a tower of giraffes, the outcome is keenly anticipated.

This week’s journey has certainly been fun and a wonderful way to end off the school year - getting all those last creative juices flowing.