Never Work With Children!

It's been far too long since my last post! I thought it was about time for another!

Well, so far in the RPP unit a lot has happened. My original proposal was going to be be; Art as a Way of Combating Stress in High Achieving Pupils.

It linked in well with my fascination of art therapy and was at one point on track. I had found a school, sent my proposal, planned "lessons", made up questionnaires and researched quite a lot of material...for a change, I was ahead of my game!

But then...it all came crashing down. I hadn't really considered the ethical implications and the school asked if I had ethics board clearance and what I could offer in the way of counselling if any psychological issues arose for the pupils...

SHIT!

That was pretty much my reaction for several days...sandwiched between panic and despair!

To make matters worse...along came half term, making any communication with the school difficult. Children eh? Maybe I should have looked into adult education!

So, last week, the realisation had dawned on me that I was going to have to rethink my whole project. I decided to take out any art therapy/psychological element in my research proposal and try out something new (and with only 3 weeks left- out of 10!)

I still intend to do work shops with the pupils although now they will be art sessions not art therapy and I will observing the effects that non-curriculum art can have on these high achieving pupils.

Now half term is over, all day I've been refining my questionnaire, attempting to re-do my proposal and writing a parent/guardian permission letter for all pupils who will be participating.

The sessions will be fun (I hope!) as I'm going to buy a book for each student and let them manipulate it! This will fit in with my own practice too! I'm hoping also to get parental permission to exhibit their work alongside mine at my MA show!

I'm looking forward to the sessions as they will also be good practice for me if I do intend to go into teaching eventually and I can always apply to do a PhD and do art therapy research in the future. At least all the problems I've had will enable me to be better prepared in the future and will give me a fair bit to write about in my evaluation at least!

So that was my quick update!

On the creative practice side of things I've made a little progress, I used glue to stick together 6 books to create a kind of book sculpture, then I painted it with white acrylic. It had been sitting in my studio for weeks as I had no idea where to take it next.

Last Friday I decided to paint onto it and began painting an image of red riding hood. It has given me several ideas;

1. Make a series of "sculptures" similar and paint scenes from my favourite books onto them (maybe fairy tale related?! Or to highlight narrative of a singular book?)

2. Make a shelf then use a book sculpture as a book end? Perhaps with new spines painted on to look like books?

3. To paint images on my sculpture, document them photographically and then paint over in white acrylic only to begin the process again (to highlight the layers of meaning maybe?)

I will post an image of the red riding hood sculpture soon, so watch this space!