Inspired by Andy

With the work of Andy Warhol as prime inspiration, our Pre-Prep children embarked on an art week of Pop Art print-making!

This year's art week was on one of the best, according to the Pre-Prep children and their teachers.

Kirsty Baranowski, PP2 teacher and Art Co-ordinator, who organises the week of art activities for the children is thrilled with how well it went and the high levels of enthusiasm and creative energy that surrounded it. 

A great deal of planning goes into this week-long event, as Kirsty explains. "The starting point is finding a skill in the Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 art curriculum that our children haven't had a chance to really develop yet. This year, we agreed to choose printing as the skill to focus on. There are a number of specific steps to complete when printing, and so it was really good for the children to be able to explore the thinking and planning involved in the design process."

After researching different companies to lead the printing workshops, Kirsty stumbled upon two very energetic and inspiring ladies called Dina and Tracey, founders of a company called Art.bybox. One of them, Dina, (above) made her appearance dressed as Andy Warhol and had the children captivated by giving them some fascinating and humorous facts about the artist. The children were able to examine Warhol's art in more detail and explore themes of Pop Art in their own work. One of their projects involved painting over a collage of four identical photos of themselves, similar to Warhol's famous Marilyn Monroe print, see an example below:

In their individual classes, all of the Pre-Prep children learnt the following steps to the printing process; sketching or photographing an object; tracing the object onto a foam sheet; cutting the object out and mounting it on a square; making the background a bright colour; adding black printing ink onto the foam template for their object and finally block printing with the foam template in the design of their choice.

Most of the steps were completed in the classroom but the actual printing took place under a gazebo in the Pre-Prep courtyard. Each printing session also finished with a collaborative art project on a long roll of lining paper (above) which the children particularly enjoyed!

Reception children were also very lucky to welcome Chloe Gill-Isaacs, mum to Hugo, (above) who is the number one Andy Warhol art dealer in Europe. She was able to provide lots of answers to the children's questions and tell them lots of stories about her experience as a Warhol art dealer.

The week culminated in a gallery-style event. All the Pre-Prep classrooms were open from 3pm onwards on Friday afternoon so that parents could come and have a look at the artwork on display (both inside and outside the classrooms) and to have a flick through the children's individual art books.