T&E

Mother’s Day Surprise

chris hope

Mother’s Day was a mad, hectic and stressful time for LA14 this year. I set the students the challenge of producing a very personalised gift for their mums, but the short time-frame (one and a half weeks) meant we would be cutting it extremely fine. The students created a wooden photo, a rectangle of wood that has their photo transferred onto it and varnished. The students did ALL the work: they accurately measured and sawed the wood; they sanded it and glued on the stand; they took a photo and stuck it onto the wood; they finally (and carefully) removed the paper and varnished their gift. The process had to be done in several stages and squeezed into our usual, busy timetable. Happily, we did it!

Breahna

Breahna

Kyza

Kyza

Imogen

Imogen

Claymation

chris hope

The students have, over the past few weeks, been working with plasticine and technology in order to create claymation movies. The whole process is a very slow one, but the general feel is one of patience and a desire to produce something very worthwhile. In fact, for the first two weeks the students didn’t even get their hands on the plasticine, they instead had to write a storyline and create a storyboard for their movie. The story had to be “do-able” within the timeframe, make sense and not be full of blood, guts and chainsaws! As they were being marked on their plans, the students had to make sure their efforts were their best with clear images and notes. Following this process the characters had to be made from the plasticine before moving on to the filming. Many of the groups are nearly finished and are now in “post-production”, adding credits and music to their movies. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some soon, but here’s a couple of pictures to show what I mean.

Filming

Filming

Evil Snowmen

Evil Snowmen

And Finally…

chris hope

Finally, the waiting’s over! Mothers’ Day has finally been and gone. Until it was over and the gifts were delivered I couldn’t post the final instalment of the surprise the students had been making for their mums. If you’ve been following us you’ll remember how they’d been sawing and drilling some wood to make their gift. Well, the results were awesome and the lucky mums received their hand made candle holders last Sunday. They’d been sanded, waxed with an antique coloured wax and then polished to create that final sheen. The photo’s below show two examples of the fabulous, finished products. I’m sure you’ll agree, they did a great job.

DSCN1930

DSCN1929

Follow Up!

chris hope

We’ve been doing so many things over the last few weeks that I’ve not managed to post everything. So, to remedy that this is a very short follow up to a couple of our more arty activities.

Our Mothers’ Day surprise (getting less surprising all the time!) started with the students measuring and sawing some wood before drilling a hole in it.  I posted some pictures of the drilling, but the sawing seemed to pass me by, so below is a picture of Benn being helped by Aimee and Jerry. The students worked in groups of three for safety and took the precaution of wearing face masks to protect them from the dust.

Another activity I haven’t caught up with was our fabulous watercolour painting (you can read the explanation of the activity in a previous post). The results were awesome and I’ve included Jonny’s and Abbey’s pictures below. Click on the images to view them full size.

SawingJonny ArtAbbey Art

Mothers’ Day Surprise?

chris hope

The students have been busy making a surprise gift for Mothers’ Day out of blocks of wood. Well, I say “surprise”, but due to the excited nature of a number of the students this is rapidly becoming a defunct adjective. Not that I can blame them, for many this is the first time they’ve used saws and drills to make something out of wood and the enthusiasm has been high. Some have been a little unsure about the drilling part, but they’re all pushing themselves forward in order to complete their “not-so-surprising” Mothers’ Day gift. Click on the images for the full sized version.

Caitlin DrillingWilliam DrillingSarah Drilling