Paintbox has just heard that all the artists entered for Arts Award Explore have passed - congratulations to India, Anya, Melissa, Timmy, Thomas, Leni, Malika, Rosa, Neve, Flo, Milla and Jenna! Everyone worked very hard on their award and completed some wonderful journals documenting their Explore journey.
So, what is Arts Award?
Arts Award supports young people to develop as artists and art leaders. The aim is to inspire children and young people to enjoy the arts and to offer them the chance to develop creativity, communication and leadership skills which are recognised through national qualifications.
Arts Award Explore follows Discover, the start of the arts adventure. Explore is about being inspired by the arts. There are 4 parts -
a. Take part in different arts activities and record what inspire you
b. Explore arts organisations and artists
c. Make art work to demonstrate your arts skills and creativity
d. Share some of your exploration with others and record what you do
The Paintbox artists took part in painting and pottery workshops. The pottery was a particular highlight - we all spent a fantastic day at Watts Gallery - Artists' Village finding out about Mary Watts and the chapel she built with the local village community using clay from their pond. The children made some beautiful tiles inspired by what they had seen.
Next, we explored artists and arts organisations. As a group, we looked at several artists for inspiration including the painter David Hockney and the designer Eloise Renouf. Eloise wrote a lovely letter to everyone with some great advice for our mural project...
'The most important thing to remember is to do it YOUR way - use your imagination, try things out and have lots of fun! There is no right or wrong way to draw - we all have our own special way of seeing things, and the more different the images are to each other, the better.'
Our main art work was a mural in the school library. Paintbox artists played a key role in designing, planning, drawing out and creating the mural. All the children in the school took part and the Paintbox artists helped to direct and support some of the younger children. The mural looks absolutely fantastic! You can see photos on the Enchanted Forest page.
Finally, we showed off our art work to teachers and families. They were very impressed and wrote some fantastic comments in the children's journals.
The feedback from the Arts Award examiner was very complimentary.
'Beautifully presented and creative logs! It is clear the young people have been inspired by their arts award activities! It is great to see detailed record of art work and reflections of their inspirations.'
Below are some of the pages of their journals...
