Workshop Week Three

Final day of workshops - not everything got finished. This wasn’t because of the time management it was mainly because of the nature of the design. When making my prototype my main issue with the design was the balance points of the headdress. Getting it to stay upright during dancing and movement. I had planned to constructed the head dresses in school however it would prove difficult for the children to meet the correct balance point so a decision was made between myself and the teachers at Westfield that i would get the children to finish all surface decoration, ever piece would be laminated and cut ready for construction, head measurements would be taken and i would construct the head dresses in Bournemouth and transport them to Weymouth with extra padding materials in case it was needed.

I was worried the children might be a little upset that they didn’t get to try there head dresses on that day however this was not an issue, the children were happy to see how the head dresses were going to look and expressed excitement for the costumes and the carnival.

With the stress of the construction in school gone, this meant the last session was a very relaxed easy going day applying more surface decoration and cable ties, talking to the children about carnival, if they were excited about there make up and dance workshops, what they had learnt from the experience.

One of the girls in the class even told me she had been inspired by the workshops and she would quite like to do an art based course after her GCSEs, she told me she liked the freedom I had given her with the design and being able to create her own character with in the seahorse was a way she could express her own creative skills with in the workshops. This was probably the best thank you I could have asked for knowing at least one of the children had gained something from the workshops as well as having an enjoyable time making the costumes.

Sea Horse Heads Constructed and Ready To be transported to Weymouth

Week Two - Westfield Tie Dye

Tie Dye in schools is by far one of the simplest things to do with the children, if you know what you’re doing! When deciding to set aside a full day session for different styles of tie dye I had a worry that the children might become easily bored of tying fabrics and had planned a second activity of continuing with pattern work on the seahorse heads in case this became a big issue; but i was pleasantly surprised that it went down extremely well with only a couple hiccups.

Tie Dye is a great way to create different pattern work on a piece of fabric or garment and when showing the children the t-shirts and fins they all get extremely excited (possibly because they all said it looked like a superhero cape - the main thing is they were excited!)

Time management was a key factor to this day, giving enough time for the dyes to set and then be washed as well as finding activities to do when the t-shirts were dying. Luckily the time plan ran extremely smoothly, tying t-shirts, dyeing them, tying the fins while the other dye was working, washing them and revealing them.

My main problem with this day was I had planned to tie the t-shirts with elastic bands, which worked fine with the children no great problems there. However i wanted to show them string can be used too so I planned to use this on the fins... only 4 of the children could tie knots. This meant we had to add an extra activity to the day which was "how to tie a knot", luckily the children picked this up relatively quickly and we were able to continue with or day.

Those children who had finished early helped other children who were finding it a little bit more difficult and once everyone had finished we had the extra activity to continue with.

Health and safety is known to be one of the most boring things - even I got a bit bored when i done my health and safety at uni, so i thought we should make this a little more fun, all though none of the children will be mixing the dyes there is no reason they can all wear aprons and gloves. This meant we could have discussions like "Why would it be sensible to wear gloves when working with a fabric dye" and "what is the purpose of the apron". this proved to be a great way of keeping the children involved in the preparation of the dyes and well as them learning the health and safety behind dye work.

T-shirts out to dry after being taken home for an extra wash.

School Session - Week One!

So today I went back to school - for the first time in 5 years I had completely forgot how different school was ever like, the art room walls covered in work, the hallway displays full of photos, the morning assembly.

Getting the train to Upwey I had no clue what to expect, luckily i had met Sue (the teacher running moving tides at westfield) at the kinetika weekend at AUCB so any awkward introductions were out the way and we had a clear understanding of exactly what was expected from me with the sessions.

Before Class started I was invited to morning  to morning assembly, it was being taken by the head of art, who was giving an assembly on the cultural Olympics, in which she give me a special mention, showed my design to the school and explained the work i was doing through out the 3 sessions i was there.

Meeting the children was an interesting experience, I hadnt been around disabled students since I was in school back in 2007, even then I was a class mate not a teacher. There disabilities ranged from physical to learning difficulties; however I was confident in my design and lesson plans and safe in the knowledge that i had the support of Sue and Mandy who knew the kids extremely well.

I was surprised and excited by the amount of knowledge the children had about carnival, when faced with the question "what is carnival?" they delivered a range of answers from "Dancing down the street", "wearing funny costumes" to "celebrating with friends". We went onto discuss carnival costume the children were keen to talk about colour, pattern and movement - however at times it felt i had to pull some of the answers out of them asking questions like "what kind of things will you like to see at a parade?" and "what will make people stand out from everyone else". By asking questions like this the children started discussing costume and visuals more developing from each others comments.

When my prototype was introduced the children responded well to the height and the movement of the head dress as well as the fins on the t-shirt. This again confirmed my faith in the design which meant at this point all nerves were completely forgotten and I was able to focus fully on the sessions. 

Starting the pattern work, at first the children were using very basic techniques to create patterns, sticking pre cut shapes onto the seahorse pieces, I felt it was key to force the idea of individuality in the costumes, although they are all a collective each seahorse could have their own personality. This was created by getting the children to work into there patterns more, applying pen and collaging different colours and orders. By doing this the children's confidence grew in their own ability to create pattern work which was the main focus of the first session. However I may have been to flexible towards the things the children were apply to the pattern thus having a lot of seahorses with hearts and flowers which is not really to the sea theme, i dont however think this will effect the costumes to much as the overall shape of the head dresses will very clearly be the same seahorse design. 

I feel it was a good idea to only have a half day session for my first day, this allowed me to get to know the children with a quite simple quick activity, and i will now know which children work fast and which need a bit of extra help to get the work done on time. 

Quick Snap Of finale Prototype

Finally finshed the prototype - just testing its ability!

Balance Points problem solving

After finishing all decorative aspects of my costumes prototype the construction has raised some problems when it comes to balancing the head dress so the children are able to move freely without it falling forward or back as well as slipping down below their eyes.

The original plan for the neck was quite a coned design this mean the top for the cone supporting the head of the sea horse was not a wide point of balance this has mean the neck has been changed from a cone design to more of a tube allowing more support around a larger area of the head.

A spilt at the bottom back of the neck was made in the first neck piece to allow a lower positioning on the head however this didn’t really achieve much more balance - this just means all head dresses will have to be made a little larger and padded with plastazote to sit in the correct position on the children’s heads. The plastazote will also create friction to stop the head dress slipping as well as act as padding to create a more comfortable fit.

Original cone shaped design with added split up the back.

Also the Cable ties at the back of the head are pulling the head dress backwards, this has meant i have had to readjust the heads and dip the nose of the se horse down creating more weight at the front to balance the head accordingly.