Tag Archive for birmingham

Clay Moonbeams at MAC

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very young children get creative with clay at MAC in birminghamMoonbeams (how to catch a moonbeam and pin it down) is an ongoing arts project celebrating early years creativity in Birmingham. The project has been up and running for near on 11 years and is currently in it’s third phase – moonbeams3.

It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to have spent the last couple of days working with nurseries and early years groups at MAC at Cannon Hill Park as part of moombeams3.

The young artists have been working on the potter’s wheel, making a fantastic range of shapes and forms – often manipulated, added to or squashed to achieve an effect.

And this is the best bit  – once the children have finished their creations they get to carry (v-carefully)their clay sculptures to a specially designed set of shelves in the Allotment gallery space at the MAC publicly on show for the rest of the summer.

Moonbeams3 is on show at MAC till the 9th September 2012.

Posted in children, clay play, community workshops, early years, exhibitions, schools tagged with , , ,

Clay play outside

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this little textured clay slab was created by a young potter at the inspiring and creative early years setting of washwood heath nursery school birminghamThe sun really did shine down on Washwood Nursery School this week and although we’d planned lots of exciting clay activities in the classroom, it was no match for the fantastic weather. Naturaly, and quite right too, all the young people headed for the door as soon as it was free flow.

If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad and as a champion of fresh air clay exploration, I decided to join them.

We squashed the clay into and onto all sorts of surfaces collecting marks and textures on biscuit sized slabs – McVities eat your heart out!

Some of the children who usually choose not to engage with the clay in the classroom took great delight in hurling lumps at the ground or using their whole body weight to squash it beneath their elbows – a much more physical and equally valid approach -great stuff!

Posted in early years, schools tagged with , , , ,

The very hungry caterpillar finished artworks

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St Thomas Hungry Caterpillar ButterflyEarlier in the year I spent seven wonderful days working with different groups at the creative St Thomas Children’s Centre in Birmingham.

We made a whole variety of ceramic panels and free standing sculpture based upon the excellent children’s book ‘The very hungry caterpillar’. As well as producing some stunning, ceramic artwork, the participants developed their mark making, literacy and communication skills whilst having a creative and fun time.

The finished items are on our facebook page for all to admire.

Posted in community workshops, early years, fired examples tagged with , , , , ,

A fine terracotta catch

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This fine catch is the result of jon the potter from eastnor pottery working with the children and staff at sleadefield primary school in birminghamTime to deliver these fine terracotta collaborative fish me thinks! – (having way too much fun with them)

These creations were made by the fantastic children at Sladefield Infants School in Birmingham. I worked with all 240 pupils over two days with 30 children creating a fish from start to finish within the hour. Phew!

Posted in children, fired examples, key stage 1&2, schools tagged with , , ,
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