Year 6 recently had the fortune of working with local artist, Charlotte Eldred.

We began our session by looking at some of Charlotte’s work and learning about her style and doodling. Charlotte spoke to us about what it was like being an artist and what inspired her to do it.

We began the session by exploring pattern, concentrating on putting our pens to paper and thinking of as many different patterns as we could. We also took inspiration from the world around us – just like artists do. We noticed our display boards had wavy borders and we had a bricked effect on some of them – this inspired us to explore these patterns on our paper. After a few minutes, we had full pages of different patter line drawings. We then used these in the next part of the workshop.

Charlotte then spoke to us about the famous artist, Banksy. We have been studying Banksy and his style of graffiti artwork in our art lessons this term.

We looked at 2 of Banksy’s pieces: The Girl with the Balloon and the Wildstyle Cow. We didn’t know that Banksy had (controversially) graffitied on real cows too!

We discussed the different interpretations of the pieces of art. Some of us thought that the girl with the balloon represented something that was just out of reach and feelings of frustration. Some of us felt that it represented loss and sadness in letting go of something or someone you love. Some of us thought it represented hope and showed that your dreams are always within reach, you just need to push yourself to achieve them. We had some great discussions both within and after the lesson. The beauty of art is that there are no right or wrong answers!

Charlotte then spoke to us about how artists can take inspiration from other artists. She showed us how we could be inspired by and draw on Banksy’s artwork, and her style of art, to create our own versions.

Charlotte helped us to think about how we could begin our drawings but we discussed how everyone’s interpretations of art are different. We spoke about how art is a medium for expression and how we can express feelings/emotions through our creativity. We thought carefully about which of the patterns we had explored earlier in the lesson could represent the feelings we wanted to get across. Linear stripes could suggest that our thoughts were clear and calm whereas spirals and scribbles could suggest that we were confused or had a lot going on in our lives. We tried to express ourselves in our artwork: some of us gave our cows more pointed angles whereas some of use used softer curved lines; some of us drew heart-shaped balloons and filled them with patterns that represented hope and love; some of us drew more pointed balloons filled with patterns that represented more negative feelings of loss or anger. We also thought carefully about the facial expressions on our cows and of the girl/boy with the balloon.

Overall, we all had a fantastic workshop and learned a lot!

Thank you Charlotte!