Silly creatures
Assessment Art-Education, evaluated by Pieter Van den Broeck
The silly creature I ended up making.
During Art-Education, Pieter’s final class example was ‘Silly Creatures.’ This was a creative class full of experiments with tearing, glueing, painting, and playing with composition… Something that’s very liberating as a beginner lesson with a new group of students. I’d also like to include Pieter’s side note in the explanation: “This is not paper waste because an art teacher can endlessly reuse it.” He’s absolutely right. The battle against product waste in artistic disciplines is tricky. When are you using too much? When is it acceptable to keep experimenting? This brings us to the argument of reusing materials. I found it refreshing that we could use the ‘forgotten’ artworks from former students for this class.
An action-photo from a classmate that’s excited about the outcome of our class!
A Step-by-Step Process:
Warm-Up:
We discuss our childhood fears, fantasize about the monsters that slept under our beds, and explore different color combinations for our example monsters.
Creative Phase:
The class is arranged in a large group of tables. On these tables are paintbrushes, A3 paper, some cans of paint, and mixing jars. We dive right in and follow Pieter’s demonstration. First, we must completely cover a sheet of paper, creating a transition between two complementary colours.
Then Pieter shows us how he splatters paint on one half of an A3 sheet and folds it in half. When he opens it again, you see a beautiful ‘reflection’ of the shapes he painted on the other side of the paper. We all get started right away, and everyone ends up with different results.
For the third experiment, we were given the creative freedom to paint whatever we wanted, as long as the entire sheet was covered! While the students worked, Pieter also enthusiastically finished his example and began cleaning up the main working-area. We placed the three completed drawings in the hallway to dry, quickly cleaned up the paint and brushes we used, and began the fourth and final experiment.
We were given another blank A3 sheet, but this time, we were asked to tear the paper instead of painting it. By tearing various corners, edges, and shapes in the large sheet and then making holes in it without causing the paper to rip into a thousand separate pieces, we created yet another strange creature. We placed this one with the other drawings.
The results of the 3 first experiments will be used by the students next year to create the fourth experiment.
Realization Phase:
While our four strange drawings were drying in the hallway, we began the main task: creating a strange creature using various colored papers. We used artwork from former students and regular colored paper to create a collage representing our own fantasy monster. For this, the students used scissors, a cutting knife, a cutting mat, glue sticks, and felt pens. Afterward, we hung the results in the hallway across from the classroom.
