Schools Screen Print

We've been having a lovely time printing banners at Sawston Village College with Year 8 during their activity week.  I think the Bard would approve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you'd like to do something similar, email me at prickwillowartspace@gmail.com

Coral at Bottisham V. C.

These banners are the culmination of a few weeks work with a small group of students at Bottisham Village College.

They did the idea development, the research, the drawing, the cutting, the dyeing and finally, of course, the printing.

There's only one word to describe them and that is:

 

                        BRILLIANT! 

 

3 Banners, ± 1m x 1.5m

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stapleford School Banners

In our 'new normal' it's difficult to remember that not so long ago we were able to do projects like this. Nowadays I get antsy if I see people standing too close in a movie, let alone across a table, screen printing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the spring term, I worked one to one with every child at Stapleford Community Primary School to print these banners for the school hall. The final project went up just a few days before we went into lockdown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was another brilliant project organised by Leslie Morgan, Arts Development Officer for Sawston and Bottisham Schools area and generously funded by Arts Society South Cambs. Polly Bodmer who is the Young Arts representative of the society was a very hard working volunteer, right hand woman and general creative consultant. 

 

Thank you, fabulous Polly!!!

 

 

 

Bottisham Village College Banners

Over the year Cary and I work on many different small scale community projects - workshops that take a couple of hours or a single day.  I love these projects because they have the excitement of an instant 'hit'.   You start with a blank sheet and in a very short while you have helped someone produce a banner or a T-shirt....etc.

Often these small scale interventions are part of a bigger project that goes beyond the print  - so it might be a small corner of a  bigger event like the re-opening weekend of the Cambridge Zoology Museum, working in a school as part of a series of activities to build up young people's confidence, or perhaps just generally contributing to an isolated community's access to the arts.

Every now and again, though, a  bigger and more challenging project comes along and that is really exciting.

Cary and I have been working on a banner project at Bottisham Village College which has been both a big project in itself as well as part of an even bigger project and event.  'Project 80' was a celebration of the college's 80th anniversary and it explored the history, heritage and architecture of the school.

We were asked by Lesley Morgan, Arts Development Officer, to create a series of banners with the pupils at the school which could hang one of the fabulous spaces in the new school building.

We chose a corner where the new building connects with the old - a sort of hub where the main entrance leads to the staircase and  turns the corner into the older building.  



Our inspiration was the school's architecture, new and old.  We used photos taken on site as a starting point for prints that were sometimes literal, sometimes more abstract. 

 We also used photos taken by the construction manager at Morgan Sindall showing the construction process. 

And we included a few images from the school's archive, as well as pictures of Henry Morris, the visionary educationalist who founded the school.

Colour inspiration was from  the 1930's when the school was first built. Blacks, greys and spot colours.
 

Forty amazing year 7 pupils worked on this project, wielding craft knives to cut incredibly complex stencils and screen printing these onto the banners themselves.

Cary went up with Ian in the scissor lift (did you know it was called that?) to hang the banners.

And here we have it......

A big thanks to Lesley Morgan,  Arts Development Officer for organising this project and to the site team from the College and from Morgan Sindall who gave up their own time to help with the hanging.  And a special thanks to The Arts Society, Newmarket who funded the project, with additional support from the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund.

More about Printing Banners

VAD nurses in Ely.   A while ago I read  Vera Brittain's 

book about being a Voluntary Nurse in WW1.  It was such a  moving acount, I really wanted to do something which acknowledged the nurses who worked in the auxillary hospital in Ely.

Once again the excellent website  Ely and WW1  provided a wealth of information.  There are some photographs of nurses on the website but unfortunately they were too indistinct for me to be able to work from so I have created a sort of composite image of a nurse for this banner.

The names, however are real.  These women worked at the Ely hospital and by the time it closed in 1919 they had treated 1,117 patients.

 

I printed a few of these banners just in case one of the layers went wrong.

As I was printing I started saving scraps of stencils and printing them down on a piece of sheeting in a more expressive way.  This is the resulting cloth.  I have called it 'Remnant' because it is made from remnants of design from the very graphic banners and because the list of names we have of the nurses are traces or remnants of the information we have of these women's lives.  

 

Printing Banners WW1

Here is Herbet James Holiday.  He was an assisitant shepherd working with his father in Stuntney before he joined up. He was killed in action at the age of 19. 

 

His employer petitioned to have him exempted from service but this was not granted. 

On 30 Dec 1917 the SS Aragon was in the harbour of Alexandria when she was torpedoed by a German submarine. Herbet Holiday was on board the fleet auxillary craft HMS Osmanieh which was searching for survivors. This was hit by a mine and went down with 149 soldiers and nurses.

Here is an fascinating website is where I found Herbet's story and that of many other Ely people who were killed in action: From Fenland farms to Flanders Fields,  Ely and World War 1.

To End all Wars - Ely Cathedral

Our installation is up!!!
 
Please come and see it. 

This is a group show by members of   Ouse Life Drawing Group  to commemorate 100 years since the end of World War 1. The artists have painted, drawn, printed (in my case) and stitched into fabric to create 100 banners.

'The war to end all wars' - if only that were true.

Anyway, it's in the South West trancept of Ely cathedral which is the bit on you right when you enter and it's before the desk where you pay, so there's no excuse not to go!

 

Community Screen Print

Revisitting a lovely screen print community workshop - Ferry Tales: a fabulous arts day with lots of events to do with Brandon's wierd and wonderful local history.

I was just sent these lovely photos and thought I'd share them. 

This was one of many amazing Market Place, Creative People and Places projects.

Good memories!

Bunting - screen print

And another School Print Day, but this time it's bunting. 

Working with year 6 children from All Saints Inter Church Acadamy in March  (the town not the month) and organised by the wonderful youth arts organisation 20Twenty Productions.  

What a nice way to end the school term and a very nice gift to leave for the school as the young people move up to secondary school.

School Banners

 I've been so busy having fun with summer workshops this year that I haven't had a chance to blog about it all.  We've been making art all over East Anglia! So, I'm going to try to do some catching up, and what better place to start than with the banners done with Rackham School in Witchford.

Each banner was printed by a class and was based on a concept from the school ethos.  It was potentially quite challenging because the themes were not directly visual:  'courage, wisdom, peace and love'.  The children were unphased and came up with all sorts of very clever ways to depict these themes as you can see below.

I usually hang the banners up on a sunny day to spray them with fire retardant - and that seemed like a good opportunity to take some photographs.

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