On Thursday 20th I ran a talk and workshop at the Burton Art Gallery for Home Schooled children. As far as preparation and resources for this workshop I brought along a pestle and mortar, paint brushes, PVA glue, cartridge paper, a black role of paper and the pigments. I used Pete Ward's Guide for Teachers and & Artists for working with Natural Pigments to explain the geological and historical qualities of the rocks we were using. I also put together my own collection of ideas and resources which included Pete Ward's paintings, Richard Long's finger prints and mud work, Prehistoric painting and a collection of black and white images to use as inspiration. It was an interesting experience to have to plan a workshop in a formal way. Looking back on what I did, I should probably have prepared decent notes for the talk purely because it would have made me slightly more confident. Although, because of the knowledge I already have, I was able to piece something together and draw upon my knowledge of art history to make it a dynamic and short talk.
The morning started with a brief talk in the gallery where I explained who Richard Long is and his place in the history of British art. I spoke briefly about a few of the key pieces in the exhibition including Cornish Slate Ellipse, Spring Circle and A Line made by Walking then answered any questions individuals had. We then went upstairs and I briefly spoke about the pigments we find in Devon, what we would be doing in the workshop and the resources and ideas available to draw upon. I then did an example of the grinding using the pestle and mortar and the children took over from there. They worked very independently and all made very unique pieces of work using the pigments they had ground.
I think it went really well, both the parents and children were very engaged with the workshop and both gained knowledge of Richard Long and the pigments while enjoying themselves. One parent said that it was definitely one of the best art workshops they had ever been to because of the resources and of course all the pigments and the depth of involvement (grinding with a pestle and mortar, mixing in the medium and then painting with the pigment). We were able to see and learn how the most effective way of mixing the pigment is and by the end of the workshop the children and parents were making very rich paint with perfect a viscosity for painting. I will admit I was slightly worried as to whether or not the children would engage and sustain interest for the duration of the workshop however all the children were happy and involved from the beginning to the end.
Improvement
The talk and performance in workshop could be improved with experience, I had a lot of positive feedback so it was clearly good enough however I do feel there is still room for a lot of improvement. It would have been nice to have multiple utensils such as a pestle and mortar, perhaps pipets to add medium to the pigment and individual pieces of black paper as the pigment on black was very effective but no one was able to take their work home.
