Creative/PracticeWhilst speaking with Hannah, I came to a conclusion that an ideal workshop would be to use collage materials in order to ensure that each child would not feel that their drawing skills aren't good enough to create a book cover illustration.
Based on the timetable I was shown, it appeared that they would be in a creative writing workshop beforehand, therefore I suggested that I could allow the children the option of designing a cover for their previous story or I could offer prompts for those that wish to not illustrate their story. As the event is about literature throughout the city, hence the locations of the Castle, Forum and UEA, I thought about bringing along books, from the Millenium Library in the Forum, for inspiration. May even do a 5 minute introduction where a child would choose a book and decipher the target audience to get them thinking about why they choose a particular audience and how they can achieve the same for their book cover illustrations. Hannah seemed pleased with my ideas and we're looking forward to the event. Practice ResearchSimple 'pizza' making for everyone. Euan instantly took up the role as 'Chef' and we became his 'assistants'. As soon as he felt like he was chef, his leadership skills kicked in. He chose how much ham slices were on each pizza and distributed the cheese and tomato how he wanted it. He'd check on us 'assistants' to make sure we were watching the timer on the ovens so that the pizza would not burn.
He ended being 'chef' whilst tucking into his home-made pizza and made the statement 'If I worked at Dominoes, this is how I'd make the pizza.'. Based on the documentary Secret Life of 4,5,6 year olds, the experts noted that when children enter role-play, it can be them playing out being an adult, which I'm seeing first hand here when Euan became a 'Chef'. He started to talk about how he's imagining himself in the future having a career as a chef for dominoes and stating that this was how he'll make the pizza's. Euan here is 7 years old, a little older than the documentary participants but he's making the same motives of consideration about his adulthood. Creative/PracticePlan 12:30 Introduction to the Workshop Show examples from Library 12:35 hand out slips for those interested in designing without their previous creative story. Genre- Choose 2 random (combine them or work with either one) Gender- Choose 1 random Age Group – Choose 1 random Title – Specifically choose 1 12:40 Begin making small and quick thumbnails 12:50 – 13:00 Start designing their main design 1:25 Finish off their designs 1:30 Finish I was glad that all of the participants took part in the workshop. I ensured that I helped all of them, including the ones who seemed to be struggling. There were even two who decided to work together and they felt more confident in talking with each other about how to design the page, which is a great sign of learning collaboration. Not all managed to finish the covers during the time slot however some wanted to continue working on them once they were home. The fact that each participant got involved and were getting creative with their designs and explaining to me about why they chose certain aspects for their narrative, I felt that my workshop ended on a successful note as they were taking in considerations about their designs. I'm so pleased with the feedback that I received from the day. It gave me assurance and confidence that I made the right options for the workshop and hopefully encouraged the creativity of the children who took part.
Practice Research
Due to boredom, Euan takes his initiative to use his imagination and rule-making skills to invent a new game using purely a ball and ourselves. He shows his rules through enacting and performing the positions before initiating the game.
Despite being the inventor of the game and having the power to change the rules, he doesn't try to amend the rules so that he can win. From what I've learnt this could be him exhibiting fairness withing a team environment. I think it's fortunate to have Euan for seeing first-hand approach to a child, in my target audience range, use play to exhibit skills. However I feel that it's a bit biased to look at only one child first-hand as all children are different and inhibit different mind-sets and skills. Although seeing children on the 4,5,6 year old documentary was a good secondary resource, I feel that I need to see other children use an environment to play/learn first hand to see what the documentary may have left/edit out. Practice Research
I wouldn't say that this has restricted his creativity and he was playing with a new set of tools he's never used before. Of course the articles spoke about tablets which are touch screen and don't necessarily come with photoshop, however there is now the Apple Pencil for iPad Pro's which is similar to what Euan was performing here. Whenever Euan has used a tablet or phone, its usually to play. He'll play with the cameras and different snapchat filters, he'll play on different apps that are game-based. He enjoys his video gaming as well. Although he'll enjoy it a bit too much and all of his concentration would be on that, if there isn't one around he'll just play with anything else he can find such as the video posted before of him creating a new ball game. He has a blend of both worlds.
Based on the idea of incorporating digital elements into my work, I wanted to see how Euan was at adapting to new technology. Being born and raised with technology aroudn him, he was able to understand how the hardware and software worked quite quickly just through experimenting and playing with them. However because I know that Euan was raised with access to use technology, I expected him to understand how to use it fairly quickly, whereas this may not be the case for all children. As stated before I think it's important I see how other children behave in certain situations, including any digital interaction.
Practice Researchhttp://day-job.org/filter/projects/Reveal-o-print-Workshop http://day-job.org/filter/projects/Summer-Art-Club-at-Peckham-Space What I appreciate from DayJob's practice is that it's interaction with the child participants. When I did the workshop with FLY festival, I really enjoyed the whole process and the execution, including recieving successful responses. I could see myself doing it again in the future as it was something I enjoyed and it was fulfilled my aim to boost creativity amongst children. Creating a workshop within an environment to help encourage creativity may be a possible route for my practice as it's something I've done previously and could develop further.
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