Arts Council Wales

Printmaking Residency

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For the past five months, I’ve been a creative practitioner in a primary school, working with a storyteller to produce a record of the stories about the local area surrounding the school. We have covered a vast time period, from the Bronze age, right up to the mid-19th century. I have been using printmaking with the children to produce flags and banners to decorate a structure in the grounds now known as the ‘Tŷ unnos’, or ‘One-Night house’. In old Welsh law, it was stated that anyone who could build a house on common ground in a night, with a fire in the hearth by morning could own the land as a freehold.

Ty Un nos9

 

Banners and flags are interspersed all around the Tŷ unnos, drawn and printed by the children and myself in response to the tales.  The map below is a record of traditional Welsh myths that Lowri shared with the children.

 

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Visit to Cardiff Print Workshop

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As part of my role as creative practitioner at Ton yr Ywen Primary school, I arranged for two groups of Y2 children to visit Cardiff Print Workshop as part of the Lead Creative Schools Project. As we have been using cyanotype printing to create banners and flags from drawings of the Welsh folk stories the children have been hearing from Lowri, I wanted to show them the magical cyanotype process, and let them have a go at making some pictures.

First they arranged a selection of objects onto the specially coated paper and we put them under the UV light for a few minutes.

When the pictures were ready, the children could watch them come magically to life in the water.

Voilà! The finished work.

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Creative Practitioner Project

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I’m very excited to have been chosen to work as a creative practitioner in a local primary school as part of the Lead Creative Schools Scheme, an extensive five-year plan to embed the arts and creativity into the Welsh curriculum.

I and a fellow practitioner, Lowri will be working with a group of about twelve Year 2 learners to create a storytelling and outdoor art project, taking inspiration from the rich local history of the area surrounding the school.  The artwork created in response to the stories will be installed in a small wooded area in the extensive school grounds. 

Lowri, who grew up in the local area, and whose first language is Welsh, told us about the Tŷ unnos (one night house), an old Welsh tradition that claims if a person could build a house on common land in one night with a fire burning in the hearth by the following morning, the land then belonged to them as a freehold. The squatter could then extend the land around by the distance they could throw an axe from the four corners of the house. Old axe and spear heads were discovered in the back gardens of local houses, and as they can now be viewed in the National Museum in Cardiff, we considered taking the children on a field trip to inspire them for their stories and artwork.

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One aspect of the artwork will involve making prints from the children’s stories – both monoprint and cyanotype – onto material which will be hung as an installation in the wooded area. Clay and willow may also be used to create structures and sculptures…who knows how things will develop and grow as the children become immersed in the tales…I’II be posting regular updates as the project unfolds.