Guest Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Hi We have been asked by our art co-ordinator to focus on an artist at least once a term with the children and put two pieces of children's work linking to that artist in a portfolio. Does anyone else do this in their school or do you just focus on the children's creativity through the development matters like normal? I personally do not see why we have to do this as we (the foundation stage) work completely different to the main school and are covering CD consistently throughout continuous provision and planning. I am finding it really hard to find an artist to do with my children! does any one have any ideas or suggestions for me please? thanks kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Hi We have been asked by our art co-ordinator to focus on an artist at least once a term with the children and put two pieces of children's work linking to that artist in a portfolio. Does anyone else do this in their school or do you just focus on the children's creativity through the development matters like normal? I personally do not see why we have to do this as we (the foundation stage) work completely different to the main school and are covering CD consistently throughout continuous provision and planning. I am finding it really hard to find an artist to do with my children! does any one have any ideas or suggestions for me please? thanks kate How about Jackson Pollock - that would be great fun outdoors! Guiseppe Arcimboldo - the children could design their own fruit faces, perhaps with a cabbage base for the head. Piet Mondrian with his geometric shapes. Kandinsky's abstract art. Andy Goldswothy's - Rowan leaves with hole - using natural materials. Oh, there's just loads! Will add a few more suggestions when I have time! But just look at these on google images - there's lots to choose from. Good luck - and have fun. x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 There have been discussions before with suggestions of artists so try a forum search. I understand the pressure you are under to 'conform' to the schools evidence plan and its basically because they don't understand how early years work but it shouldn't be too hard to find 2 artists during a year to look at. We did some lovely work based on Hockney with free use of the digital camera in our playground. The use of the camera came first from the children we just looked at some of hockney's work to follow the childrens ideas In the photo spot the hockney postcard and a pair of twins photographing each other! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 personally i think i would always go for the more obscure suggestions...not the ones that the children might repeat further up the school...also i suspect that if we did this i would focus on the materials used or the way it was created rather than a 'copy' of the picture. So antony gormley statues ...or pictures painted with thick paint and glue spredders (for oil/knife pictures). That way i suspect it would fit into the eyfs intentions in a more approriate way. but i think i would be putting photos into their portfolio rather than their 'products'...i firmly believe that these should be going home to share with their families Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredbear Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Hi there are so many you could introduce to the children. Like Devonmaid suggested google images. My questions are who is the portfolio for and why ? It makes me rather cross when co-ordinators come in and say you must do such and such without any reasoning or explanation behind their thinking. Sorry rant over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gezabel Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Our pre-school children really enjoyed Kandinsky's concentric circles and created their own version. We did the same with another painting the name of which escapes me. The children painted the background and then used all sorts of weird and wonderful resources to make patterns Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfer Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 We did work on the snail painting by henri matisse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I've always found children are fascinated by artists and their work - the EYFS asks us to "Give opportunities for children to work alongside artists and other creative adults so that they see at first hand different ways of expressing and communicating ideas and different responses to media and materials." This would be one way of doing that I feel. It's no different to using music created by someone else for children to listen to. Looking at and talking about art is another just another creative media. We should also be enabling children to use different tools and techniques, to explore different media and to select appropriate media from those available so I would use artists to demonstrate how people do that in real life....and keeping 2 pieces of work will always inform your assessments if the outcomes are based on lots of exploration and critical thinking! Andy goldsworthy is great to combine with placing and arranging activities or Richard Long, anyone who uses ephemera. i've seen fantastic nursery work based on these 2 artists. Aboriginal art, african art....great for patterning. Matisse with his paper shape cut outs (have also used those with nursery), a much better way to consider SSM for example by looking at matisse's snail (I took my nursery to look at the original hanging in the Tate - they loved it!!) than cutting round boring squares. Miro even. Using a really interesting picture to develop language in the way the National Gallery does "Take one picture" is also great. I've used paintings to promote creative/imaginative responses....often just having art postcards laminated and used in displays or for just talking about. they really encourage "think about" type questions. I also do think that as a nursery class sometimes you do have to join in with things across the whole community you belong to. The children will develop a fabulous portfolio of their own to take right through to year 6 with them.....all the insights they gain along the way may just produce the next Damian Hurst!! (There's another one...his spots!!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 (edited) The other way to approach it is to look at the way children are using mark making and link an artist to that..that's how the Richard Long work came about as the children were doing lots of hand printing and using mud in Forest school to do the same... http://www.richardlong.org/ Take one Picture - lots of examples on the web site http://www.takeonepicture.org/ac/art/art_ex2.html shows EYFS children Cx Edited November 12, 2011 by catma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I agree with all the artists that Devonmaid suggested. They are they same ones that immediately sprung to mind for me too. Have you seen the art section of Poisson Rouge? http://www.poissonrouge.com/artgallery/ There are a few famous paintings that can be changed/ created with really simple whiteboard/ mouse clicks and drags. I am the art coordinator at our school and I tend to leave FS alone to work on their child initiated and topic based CD work. The only time I stick my nose in is when the teacher asks me for help with ideas or techniques. I understand that some schools do not work in this way but it works for us. I wonder if your art coordinator has ever worked in FS? Maybe a discussion is needed to explain how things work?? I do agree though that in FS you should do some work about artists, but not in the same way as the rest of the school where the teacher chooses the artist and the children have to follow suit. In FS it should, like everything else, be child led. So you could follow Finley's maid's advice and look at what the children do independently then link this to an artist (but this might be difficult if you don't know much about artists yourself, remember... google is your friend!!) or you could put up a gallery of different artists work and see if the children show an interest in a particular artist. I believe that when creating art the process is more important than the outcome, and that's for all ages not just FS. Teaching about art to me is like teaching history. If you are learning about an artist, that is exactly what you do. This doesn't mean that the children shouldn't have a go at creating art in a similar style or using similar techniques (just like in history we might use role play to help the children understand) but this shouldn't be the only art teaching. We should also be helping the children to develop and improve their own individual style, but to me that is a separate lesson to the one where we learn about artists. The two will inevitably cross over because as you teach the different techniques and styles of famous artists the children may find new skills to add into their own style. I tend to remind my children (and colleagues!) regularly that THEY are artists too. When I first said this to a class I had a few children disagreeing with me but after a while they all began to realise that I was right!! Ok, rant over! Sorry but I'm quite passionate about my subject and I don't like to hear of people giving my role a bad name! Haha x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 We've use Keith Haring's work as a starting point inReception which has worked well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 thank you to every one who has replied and provided fantastic ideas. You have really opened my eyes to artists that can be used in the foundation stage and from looking at the different artists i now have some good ideas that will link in really nicely to what we are doing at the moment. I agree missblinx that our art co-ordinator should definately spend a day or more in the foundation stage to see how we work and or have a meeting with ourselves to discuss how we teach and how the children learn in our setting. I am the history/geography co-ordinator and know from working in early years that you have to treat FS differently in terms of asking for evidence and planning etc. Therefore its more photographic evidence that is provided or 'sticky labels' as evidence. I think i am going to do what you have suggested and put several artists work up around the setting and see which one the children show an interest in more and go with that. thanks again for all your fantastic ideas kate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 I havent read the other posts but as a practitioner always trying to educate myself and my children i think this is a great idea. We have some really interesting paintings in the church attatched to my setting and the children enjoy looking at them and we talk about them. There is nothing more inspiring then to look at the beautiful stain glass window when the sun is shining - these moments of interest may not lead you down the path you thought you maybe be going but it does spark an interest and increase knowledge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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