In this blog, artist Katherine Diaper reflects on her recent creative collaboration with fellow artist Ingrid Budge and pupils from Dounby Primary School.
Landscape and Light was a creative collaboration between Ingrid Budge, myself and the pupils from P4/5 at Dounby School. We had great fun devising a series of workshops to support and develop the children’s confidence, creativity and collaborative skills during June 2021. This project was funded through Creative Scotland’s Small Grant’s Scheme and was supported by the Pier Arts Centre.
The workshops were based on our own creative practice: walking; experimenting on the shore with what we find; filling sketch books with mark making; sketches and words - then taking this back to our studios to develop into more resolved pieces in paint and photographic image. The enjoyment of sharing these experiences with the children, was not only in seeing their engagement and creativity develop but also in the way that they experimented, which in turn taught us new ways of making and creating.
One of our highlights was working at Evie, a location chosen by the children. It was great to see the children enjoying time together as a class, playing, experimenting, collecting and creating on the sand…and with the sand.
The children collected objects and used these to make cyanotypes. They experimented with mark making and recorded their observations of the landscape in lines and words. They also discovered another view of landscape through a hand lens.
They filled sketch books with marks and words, experimented with ink and sea water and a range of natural pigments. We were all so grateful for the sunshine!
The children’s feedback explains what the experience meant to them, ‘we got to learn lots of things as well as having fun’, ‘this project has given me a completely different view of art and nature’ and ‘this has given me more creativity, painting skills and confidence’.
This opportunity and the children’s enthusiasm gave Ingrid and I the confidence to try new ways of creating as well. When we returned to school for the final workshop day, as well as working on individual pieces, we all worked together one one very large cyanotype and a diptych painting in acrylic for the school.
With many thanks to Creative Scotland for the funding, to Carol at the Pier Arts Centre for her advice and support, to Jenny for being our wonderful workshop assistant, to Rhona and Pauline - class teacher and teaching assistant at Dounby School -for their enthusiasm and support, and of course all the children, for their bright ideas, energy and willingness to have a go at all the creative experiments. As one of the children said it was ‘one of the most fun things in my life’, well Ingrid and I had a wonderful time too.