Dolfor Prints & Books

These colourful A4 accordion-fold albums were made by Key Stage 2 pupils from Dolfor Primary School, to conclude an intensive two-day workshop with Helen Kozich at Oriel Davies in May. The children began by making their own small sketchbooks, then using them to record responses in word and image to some of the artworks in the Oriel Davies Open 2012. This led on to relief printmaking, using inscribed polystyrene plates as well as cardboard collagraphs, printed with lo-tech wooden spoons and our etching press, then presented together in their own artist books.

Making Stop Motion Animations

Artists Chris Oakley and Carolina Vasquez are helping young people from six Powys schools to make their own animated short films. Between March and June 2012, Key Stage 2 & 3 pupils have been working in teams to devise storylines, employ drawing and collage to create scenes and characters, use a rostrum camera and learn about stop motion techniques. Each group spent a whole day with one of the two artists. In one school, teachers also combined these sessions with a lively cross-curricular programme of activities that brought together P.E., art and maths on an Olympics theme.

Everyone taking part first visited Oriel Davies to see film, installation and animation works by Pia Borg, Sybil Montague and Sean Vicary.  Their own very short films will be on show to the public in Oriel Davies' education space this July. Taking part are pupils from Newtown High School and Maesyrhandir, Hafren, Dafydd Llwyd, Churchstoke and Gladestry primary schools.

Based near Wrexham, artist Chris Oakley is currently exhibiting in a major group exhibition at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany. Carolina Vasquez is based in South Wales and has worked on art and film projects with young people as far afield as Florida and Colombia. These 23 days of Oriel Davies outreach workshops have been made possible through grant funding from The Prince’s Foundation for Children & Arts Start Programme, which enables school children from across the U.K. to engage with artists and galleries, often for the very first time.

Designing with Materials / Understanding Electricity

Key Stage 3 students worked intensely with artist Jon Bielstein in full-day outreach workshops following their visits to Paul Granjon’s Oriel Factory. Students engaged in lively group exercises that illuminated how electricity works, then made their own simple switches to control moving elements within their scrap sculptures.

To create these, Jon led them through a series of processes based on designing with materials, prototyping, justifying their decisions and team-working. This project was part of Oriel Davies’ Start programme funded by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts.

Whirligigs Workshops with Angharad Pearce Jones

Artist and blacksmith Angharad Pearce Jones spent four days in a local school working with Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils, where they created individual ‘whirligig’ constructed sculptures. Oriel Davies will be displaying these and other young people’s artworks made during the 2011-12 Start schools programme in the gallery’s education space this summer term. Angharad is also featured in our Beyond Pattern resource pack for teachers.

Recycling and Sculpture from Waste Packaging

Artist Helen Kennedy worked with two of our Start Programme primary schools after their visits to Paul Granjon’s Oriel Factory. Key Stage 2 pupils collected waste plastics, cardboard and metal, discussing their particular recycling issues, characteristics and functions and explored how these could be used to construct robots with moving parts. Another school focussed on the environmental implications and creative potential of plastic objects found in marine flotsam and jetsam to make a huge temporary floor installation, as well as an owl sculpture from milk bottles for their school garden.

Schools Visits to Paul Granjon’s Oriel Factory

Poet Chris Kinsey and education officer Helen Kozich accompanied school groups visiting the workshop zone and robot-inhabited gallery space that was Oriel Factory. Pupils learned about artist Paul Granjon’s ideas and working processes, interacted enthusiastically with his experimental robots and had a go at generating electricity on a bicycle power station. They used drawing and creative writing to develop robot designs, inspired by the discarded and up-cycled electronic waste and ideas about recycling and energy use they encountered during the visit. Participants later developed their own sculptures back at school as part of Oriel Davies' Start outreach workshops programme.