ARTPEDAGOGY
  • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
    • ABOUT THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #1
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #2
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #3
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #4
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #5
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #6
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #7
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #8
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #9
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS: A CRITICAL POINT
  • KS3 PROGRAMME
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS: KS3 PROGRAMME
    • TC1: MAKING MARKS - ON SURFACES, IN SPACE
    • TC2: EXPRESSIVE APPROACHES >
      • TC2: MEMORIES, CONNECTIONS & SENSATIONS - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC3 : WORDS & ART
    • TC4: EXPLORING (& ABUSING) ART HISTORIES >
      • TC4 : EXPLORING (& ABUSING) ART HISTORIES - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC5: PLAYFUL, PURPOSEFUL, ABSURD
    • TC6: MATERIAL MATTERS - INTUITION, TOUCH, SENSATION
    • TC7: A SENSE OF PLACE
    • TC8:VALUE & BALANCE; REPRESENTATION & ABSTRACTION >
      • TC8: VALUES, CONCEPTS, CONCERNS - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC9: Speaking Truth to Power - issue-based art
  • COUCH TO ARTIST
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: A 9-STEP PROGRAMME
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 1 MARKS; WORDS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 2 VIBRATIONS; SENSATIONS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 3 TAKING SHAPE
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 4 PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 5 PLAY, TIME
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 6 HEAD, HANDS, HEART
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 7 ART, WORDS; MEANINGS, CONTEXTS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 8 VALUES & MEASURES
  • RESOURCES
    • ABOUT DRAWING
    • #abstractadvent
    • RED NOSE DAY DOODLE
    • PRIMARY RESOURCES >
      • INTRODUCTION
      • PRIMARY: DADA WORKSHOP
      • Superheroes! (And patterned pants)
      • Robots!
      • Ancient Greece: figures and forms
      • Eek! A wolf ate my sketchbook
      • Ancient Egypt: What a Relief!
      • Shapes and (hi)stories
      • Figures & Factories
    • LESSON RESOURCES >
      • A glass of water?
      • Alternative Art Histories
      • LINES & LENSES
      • STUFF & NONSENSE
      • THE GRID - METHOD AND MISCHIEF
      • Noughts & Crosses - playing with art (hi)stories
      • THE ART OF INSTRUCTION
      • PREHISTORY NOW
      • Self-Portraits (Pt.1) About Face
      • Self-Portraits (Pt.2) More than just a pretty face
    • Why study Art?
    • Preparing for the Personal Study
    • Eye to Pencil
    • ARTICLES >
      • ABOUT ABSTRACTION: HENRY WARD
  • SHOP
  • ABOUT
  • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
    • ABOUT THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #1
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #2
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #3
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #4
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #5
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #6
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #7
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #8
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPT #9
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS: A CRITICAL POINT
  • KS3 PROGRAMME
    • THRESHOLD CONCEPTS: KS3 PROGRAMME
    • TC1: MAKING MARKS - ON SURFACES, IN SPACE
    • TC2: EXPRESSIVE APPROACHES >
      • TC2: MEMORIES, CONNECTIONS & SENSATIONS - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC3 : WORDS & ART
    • TC4: EXPLORING (& ABUSING) ART HISTORIES >
      • TC4 : EXPLORING (& ABUSING) ART HISTORIES - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC5: PLAYFUL, PURPOSEFUL, ABSURD
    • TC6: MATERIAL MATTERS - INTUITION, TOUCH, SENSATION
    • TC7: A SENSE OF PLACE
    • TC8:VALUE & BALANCE; REPRESENTATION & ABSTRACTION >
      • TC8: VALUES, CONCEPTS, CONCERNS - ADAPTED PLANS
    • TC9: Speaking Truth to Power - issue-based art
  • COUCH TO ARTIST
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: A 9-STEP PROGRAMME
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 1 MARKS; WORDS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 2 VIBRATIONS; SENSATIONS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 3 TAKING SHAPE
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 4 PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 5 PLAY, TIME
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 6 HEAD, HANDS, HEART
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 7 ART, WORDS; MEANINGS, CONTEXTS
    • COUCH TO ARTIST: TASK 8 VALUES & MEASURES
  • RESOURCES
    • ABOUT DRAWING
    • #abstractadvent
    • RED NOSE DAY DOODLE
    • PRIMARY RESOURCES >
      • INTRODUCTION
      • PRIMARY: DADA WORKSHOP
      • Superheroes! (And patterned pants)
      • Robots!
      • Ancient Greece: figures and forms
      • Eek! A wolf ate my sketchbook
      • Ancient Egypt: What a Relief!
      • Shapes and (hi)stories
      • Figures & Factories
    • LESSON RESOURCES >
      • A glass of water?
      • Alternative Art Histories
      • LINES & LENSES
      • STUFF & NONSENSE
      • THE GRID - METHOD AND MISCHIEF
      • Noughts & Crosses - playing with art (hi)stories
      • THE ART OF INSTRUCTION
      • PREHISTORY NOW
      • Self-Portraits (Pt.1) About Face
      • Self-Portraits (Pt.2) More than just a pretty face
    • Why study Art?
    • Preparing for the Personal Study
    • Eye to Pencil
    • ARTICLES >
      • ABOUT ABSTRACTION: HENRY WARD
  • SHOP
  • ABOUT
Picture


​FROM COUCH TO ARTIST
TASK 5: PLAY; TIME


Task 5 connects with Threshold Concept 5. This 'big idea' provides an opportunity to consider how artists 'play' with ideas, materials, memories and experiences - and mistakes and failure.
​
​ ​You will complete:
1. a short creative writing exercise (suggested time: approx 1-2 hours). 
2. a personal, practical response influenced by a childhood memory of art, or of making art (approx 4-6 hours).
​
Picture

Picture


​TASK 5

ACTIVITY PART 1: RECOLLECTIONS

What is your earliest memory of making art? What details do you remember of specific activities, of the materials used, of the marks made? ​How old were you, what did you do, and why did you do this? Perhaps you (or a parent or carer) have kept some of your childhood drawings, paintings or sculptures - and if so, why not dig them out and see if any of this evidence aligns with your recollections. 

  • Write a short experimental text (a paragraph, a list of words or a poem, perhaps) that reflects on a specific memory of making or encountering art as a young child. 

The challenge here is to craft something in words with sensitivity and authenticity (to practice creative writing skills with the A level Personal Study in mind). Pay close attention to coupling descriptive word choices with recollected facts (use a thesaurus to broaden your options). As an extension of this activity you might choose to develop and/or present this text as an artwork in its own right, perhaps a text-based drawing or painting, a video, a sound installation or performance. 
a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense only interfere. once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms ofchildhood visions and dreams.” Giorgio DeChirico

ACTIVITY PART 2: CHILDHOOD ART, RE-IMAGINED

The challenge with Part 2 is to consider the creative marks made by children (and you, as a young child), and their potential appeal (or not) in comparison to marks that are made with further experience, knowledge and deliberation. You are to:
​
  • ​Respond creatively to an artwork that you recall making as a child. ​

​This might be from an old artwork you have to hand, or inspired by a memory (of yours, or perhaps shared by a parent or carer). You might opt to demonstrate great improvements in technical skill and control or, alternatively, you might set out to recapture the same uninhibited authenticity. Importantly, do not simply copy the work. But do sensitively apply increased skills and gained knowledge. Your response will possibly look quite different, perhaps unrecognisably so. For example, you might consider adapting the original subject matter to be more relevant to you now, or you might use an alternative scale or media to bring new interpretation to the work. Read the text below and research relevant links to help further.


​TASK 5 ADDITIONAL PROMPTS & RESOURCES


Artists have long-held a fascination for drawings by children. I'll avoid an overused quote here by Picasso, but it is perhaps him and his Modernist contemporaries - Joan Míro, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, and Jean Dubuffet - that are most associated with this - the pursuit of the 'innocent eye' of childhood. All of these artists were drawn to the seemingly 'naive', 'raw' and 'spontaneous' appeal of children drawings - mark making uninhibited by traditions or any formal art education. It's worth noting too that this interest was enhanced by a fashion for 'Primitive' Art at that time, fuelled by new archaeological discoveries and an increase in the importing - and cultural misappropriation - of cultural artefacts from other continents such as Africa and Asia. (The ArtPedagogy lesson, Pre-History Now explores these themes in more depth).
The power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye; [...] a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of colour without consciousness of what they signify - as a blind man would see if suddenly gifted with sight. John Ruskin, 1857 
Still, rather than provide further links to the already-prominent artists mentioned above, the examples below have been chosen to introduce alternative interpretations and responses to memories of childhood and related themes. Following the links is recommended. This will provide further context for these specific choices.
Monster Project - Jonathan/Oliver Sin
Louise Bourgeois Home for Runaway Girls 1994
Asger Jorn Letter to my Son 1956–7
Zineb Sedira Mother Tongue 2002
Ibrahim El-Salahi Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I 1961–5
Yinka Shonibare, Boy Balancing Knowledge, 2015
Paul Klee - painting inspired by his son's artwork of tents, 1919
Jean-Michel Basquiat AND Jasper Lack, APEX, 1983
Mark Tansey, The Innocent Eye Test, 1981

TASK 5 SUMMARY

You should complete:
  • a range of notes in response to the information above. This might also include wider research and experimental sketches.
  • A ​​short experimental text that reflects on a specific memory of making art (or encountering art) as a young child - this text might be considered/presented as an artwork in its own right.
  • An artwork/personal development in response to an artwork that you created as a child - applying sensitive thinking and developed understanding/knowledge/skills.

@artpedagogy
​[email protected]