Sara Cooper - Artist in Residence, Green TV

Working as artist in residence with Tees Valley Arts on year two of the Green TV natural heritage project with Golden Flatts Primary School, Seaton Carew

School Workshops and Assembly - July 2011

Work with Yr 5 & 6 class teachers to develop project links to geography, science, history and arts curricula. Children continue to make notes for ‘Captain’s Blog’ - the school’s own Green TV project blog.

Pupils have extended and developed their research and fieldwork skills through navigation of the Nature Reserve. They have identified and recorded evidence of wildlife and documented their own journeys around the site.

Year 6 pupils help to prepare all of the work for a celebration exhibition in the school hall. We make labels and organise the display - field books, prints, wax resist drawings and photographs. We also include some of the found objects the pupils have collected and the maps and ship prints made in response to the Tees-mouth.

During a special assembly, the Year 5 & 6 pupils give a Green TV project presentation to the lower school and invited parents. Class teacher Mrs Heaton supports all pupils to present their work and their thoughts on the project.

One group of pupils gives a printmaking demonstration to the audience, with some parents even having a go at drawing and making block prints! Parents and staff are invited to look over the exhibition and ask questions about the project.

The children have worked very hard during all of the class workshops and site visits, and are really proud of all the work they have produced. Photographs of the project will stay in school to be displayed and to inspire lots of pupils, teachers and parents to visit the Tees-mouth Field Centre and Nature Reserve themselves.

Site Artworks

Grayling

This sculpture is a creative response to Maze Park led by artist Adrian Moule, working with young people from Abingdon and Sacred Heart Primary Schools.

These young people learnt about the industrial and natural history of this reserve, which is home to some seventeen different types of butterfly. 

Adrian said, ‘‘I wanted to capture the animation of the space, seen as empty and serene from a distance, but full of movement if you look at it up close. Marching, crawling, hopping, jumping, swaying, flapping, skittering and flowing…the landscape lives at all times”.  The sculpture tries to include this notion of always being a part of the nature of the space - gently moving with the wind, the butterflies act out the play.

The grayling is a grey/ brown butterfly, a master of camouflaged disguise when it rests with its wings closed, but showing threatening dark eye spots when its wings are open. The Grayling sculpture shows the same spirit of contradiction, celebrating butterflies in steel.


Keep following for new artworks created in Year 2 of Green TV.

Sara Cooper - Artist in Residence, Green TV

Working as artist in residence with Tees Valley Arts on year two of the Green TV natural heritage project with Golden Flatts Primary School, Seaton Carew

Site visit  - July 2011

Pupils and teachers make a second visit to Tees-mouth Field Centre and Nature Reserve. We’re planning to draw our journey around “the Snook” so we fold simple paper maps for later, and pupils take their field notebooks to finish work on their A-Z drawings.

Before we head out to explore the site I show the children how to make wax resist drawings, using candles and chunky graphite sticks to make rubbings of objects and surfaces. Lynne gives the class a quick tutorial on using digital cameras to record what we see - we’re going to look for evidence of ship-wrecks!

Visit to the Snook - an island opposite South Gare, only accessible at low tide.

We walk across from North Gare, the wet sand shining in bright sunlight - it’s a hot day but far less windy than our first visit. We can see the Little Terns feeding and hear them calling - Lynne describes it as the sound of summer.

Up and across the sand dunes and through the marram grass, spiking our ankles and calves. Some of the children have never walked this far before and would prefer to catch the bus!

Driftwood trees, silver grey, bleached by the sun, scoured smooth and clean by the windblown sand. We’re looking at surface texture, shape and form; the children make rubbings of found objects - natural and man-made. We find discarded fishing nets, timber and huge chunks of slag. The shells seem bigger on the Snook - cockle shells and mussels, fishing line and crab claws amongst the bits of coloured plastic.

Rangers Lynne and Claire guide us around the Snook and help us to orientate ourselves so that we can draw maps when we get back. We’re at sea level and much closer to the gigantic cargo ships that appear to glide past us like so many giant toys. The power station, a monumental backdrop to our survey of the island and another giant, an oil rig, waits to be repaired.

Back at the Field Centre we have lunch then the children work in three groups. One group makes drawings and surface rubbings of found objects - bits of driftwood, timber from wrecks, pulleys, nets and ropes. Other children use brushes with ink to reveal their collections of surface textures, flotsam and jetsam. Group three work with Lynne to identify birds, animals, minerals and plants for their A-Z field-books. The groups circulate and everyone has a go at each activity.

We use the whiteboard to draw a group map of the Snook and pupils recall where we walked and what we saw. Everyone in the class draws their own journey map and records where the birds and wrecks could be found.

Site Artworks

Artists during Year 1 of Green TV have created a number of artworks in response to the surroundings of the wildlife sites visited.

Animations for Green TV Mobile Phone App

Paul Dolan produced a number of digital animations in response to an exploration of the Whinnies Nature Reserve and South Burdon Community Woodland, Darlington. The animations are the culmination of three residencies Paul carried out on these sites with pupils from Gurney Pease Primary and Cockerton CE Primary schools with the support of Darlington Borough Council’s Parks & Countryside Team.

 

These animations now form the basis of a free Green TV App, available from both Android Market and Apple App Stores. To get the app on your Android and iPhone handsets, please visit the

Android Market Place and the iPhone App Store.

Mirage

‘Mirage’ is an artistic response to Coatham Marsh, the place and its history. Industry has always affected the marsh, but despite this, the natural environment has survived and continued to grow. Sometimes industry and nature are in conflict, and sometimes they work together. Some man-made objects, like boats, carry a cargo of references to all of these things – nature, industry and human endeavour.

Mirage was developed with the help of the children of Whitecliffe Primary School in Carlin How, Westgarth Primary School in Marske and members of the Redcar and Cleveland community.

Conflict Zone

During her Green TV residencies, Lindsay Duncanson worked with pupils from Bader and Yarm Primary School and wildlife staff at RSPB Saltholme to creatively explore RSPB Saltholme’s wildlife and history.

Saltholme was once part of the World War 2 coastal defense system. The remains of an ammunition store can be seen near the main entrance of the site. Pupils thought about the defense of our coastline during WW2, and drew parallels with how the same land is now being used – to protect and conserve wildlife.

A ‘Conflict Zone Brass Rubbing Trail’ has been created for the site, inviting people to make rubbings from and follow a path of words in the Discovery Zone.

For more information on Green TV please visit www.teesvalleyarts.org.uk/greentv.html

School Workshops - May / June 2011

Pupils try out a variety of folding techniques to make books. We use book making tools and have a go at making sections, concertina folds, star books, and map folds.

Pupils use their field studies and collected objects to transfer drawings onto print blocks.

We are making relief prints - incising the surface of the block before covering with ink using a roller. We use poly-block and water based ink.

Working alongside the class teacher we develop links to science, geography and arts curricula, looking at Columbus’ fleet of ships and made drawings. These will be made into prints for Teesmouth Nature Reserve maps.

Sara Cooper - Artist in Residence, Green TV

Site visit - May 2011

Pupils and teachers from Golden Flatts Primary School visited Tees-mouth Field Centre, Hartlepool Power Station and explored the Nature Reserve. Pupils folded their own hand-made books to use as field notebooks.

Rangers Lynne and Claire guided us around the site pointing out different habitats, plants and animals. A long eared owl swoops low over our heads and flies across the dunes.

The view across to South Gare is dominated by the steel works. Teesmouth is busy with cargo ships sailing in and out of port.

A very windy day; we fastened our map drawings and field notebooks to clip- boards, but still we lost some to the wind! We had to wear sand goggles to stop the sand blowing into our eyes.

Learning to use viewfinders - this helps pupils select what to draw. We draw from observation, exploring composition and scale.

We collected samples and back at the field centre Lynne and Claire help us to identify and record our finds. Pupils have collected limpet shells, sea kelp, driftwood and slag (a by-product of steel making).