Faces are Everywhere
The exploration of the face through shapes and photography
"How many 'faces' lie hidden, waiting for the time when curious eyes will find them in their secret places. In the heart of a leaf or the bark of a tree. In a frozen pond or the turning sea. In the twist of a chair or the look of a key or the shrivelled skin of an elephant's knee."
Irwin Dermer
With Artist in Residence, Trevor Streader, students will create a series of faces from anything and everything - old cotton reels, bottle tops, buttons, braids, string, pegs, pattern blocks and found objects. They will explore shape and pattern and the images they create using their imagination. They will explore emotions and personality, and the power of the face to communicate through expression. The face is and always has been a universal theme that artists have explored and studied.
Follow us, week by
week and explore with us…
Week 1
Trevor explained what he does as a designer at the Museum
of Melbourne. The designers at the museum all work in a place called a studio.
Designers work on the exhibitions, the places that hold the museum exhibits,
the museum brochures and magazines and they even choose the type that is used
in the display explanations.
Designers have ideas, make things and test ideas for
people.
“A designer makes pictures of what they think they will
do.” Henry
“Designers design a house for a builder to build.” Rueben
“Designers design pillows.” Vy
Over the next few weeks we are going to have fun making faces.
To do this we are going to make faces using a variety of materials. We have lots of objects that we will make
these faces with.
This week, Trevor showed
the students a photographic slide show “faces in the environment”. This show
was a collection of photos he had taken of things around him that reminded him
of faces. Clouds, the pavement, buildings, collections of natural objects….we
realised that faces can be found everywhere, you just have to look for them!
During the week, Trevor will print some of these photos
of each of the student’s faces and have them ready for next week.
Through this free play, students began to categorise their emotions:
happy
|
scared
|
weird
|
silly
|
serious
|
messy
|
funny
|
crazy
|
tired
|
still
|
scary
|
boohoo
|
shocked
|
surprised
|
bored
|
angry
|
rude
|
I don’t know
|
shy
|
frustrated
|
listening
|
grinning
|
frowning
|
OMG!
|
sad
|
bad
|
glad
|
Trevor explained what we would do next week and the materials we will use to start our work as designers. He produced this box of many objects.
He chose a few objects from this box….
And he made a face!
We are looking forward to working as
designers next week.
Week 2
Trevor began the session this week showing
all the funny face emotion photos we took last week. The children delighted in
seeing these images and the range of expressions that each student made. The
students used the descriptive words from last week when they discussed the
photos. We laughed a lot when we viewed the images. It was so much fun!
Trevor then explained that we will be making
a face book and series of posters for the final installation and exhibition of
the artist residency.
We examined a table with arrays of objects
that Trevor had complied.
Each student chose an object that they then had to say what part of the face they would use it for.
Each student then collected 4 objects and
they played around with the idea of a face. Each object represented one aspect
of a face; a mouth, nose or eyes.
They then chose a coloured backing board and
started to explore and play around with a selection of the objects. The
students examined these objects, and worked out what object and shape best
suited a nose or eyes or a mouth and what kind of expression they wanted the
object to create in the face.
The found object faces started to take shape.
New faces emerged…
And Trevor photographed them.
In our final discussion the students revealed
they are finding faces everywhere they look now. Faces are really everywhere!
Week 3
This week we reviewed the work we created last week. We
discussed the artworks and the emotion behind each work. Trevor also brought in
black and white photos that he took in the first week of his residency. These
photos depicted each child expressing a series of emotions. We had so much fun
looking through these photos. The children were familiar with the images having
already viewed these photos as a starting point for last week’s faces made from
found objects.
This week students were asked to draw and paint into the
A3 black and white photographic portraits, highlighting the emotion they
expressed. The type and weight of lines and colours they used served to
emphasise the emotions behind each portrait.
We played around with the intensity of the water colour
paints and decided that when we used more water, the features of the face
showed through more.
Students discussed colour and emotion. If the face was a
funny face, we thought about what colour represented that emotion. If the face
was an angry face we thought about reds and oranges to represent this emotion.
Finally, we reflected on our learning over the past few
weeks. Students discussed the range of
emotions and feelings that were explored when we made a series of funny faces. We
decided that we would make a book of all the portraits and found object faces
for Prep families to borrow.
Week 4
This week we concluded our explorations with
a final review of all the work we have pursued over the past few weeks. We drew
on all our acquired knowledge of the face and created a tissue paper collage.
We viewed some work by designers who have used tissue paper and collage to
create images and were inspired by these images and the detail and delicacy in
them.
We then set about creating our own tissue
paper collages, focussing on the laying of the paper and the changes that
occurred when one layer was placed upon another layer. We noticed that the
colours sometimes changed and the tone of the colour always changed.
a
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