Wednesday 6 January 2010



Workshop One



The Q & A Project

40 students worked in groups to discuss ideas and to come up with thoughts, ideas, advise for new students to the VisCom course. The results were funny, individual, useful, insightful, serious, straight forward, to the point, thoughtful...




Warm up activities

Self portraits using 'alternate' hand and many different drawing tools: sponge, card, brushes, ink, collage, paper, stencils...

Students used these as a starting point to discuss likes/dislikes/interests...

They worked in 'mixed up' groups to exchange 'facts' about each other.




What I know now

Students used hand lettering to illustrate their advice for new students to the course.










Students from VisCom and Foundation Art and Design using drawing to make links with others, ask questions, make comments, give advise, work hard, relax, make artwork...


Workshop Two

Students worked in small teams from different year groups and different courses to find a quote or saying about drawing/design/art...

They were inspired by the work of contemporary artists and illustrators including Johnny Hannah and Marian Deuchars to design their own lettering. They used silk screen inks, stencils, sponges, paint, pencils... to make the final 'quote'.

Each student contributed several letters/numerals to make up the final work.











Outcomes

The workshop was filmed and a rough cut can be seen at


Final quotes



















Student feedback on the workshops

"Group work excellent."
"Great experimentation-media we can't or don't have time to experiment with."
"Screen printing and stenciling-paint inks excellent."
"Great inspiration - very helpful and insightful."
"Talking to degree students was helpful."
"Everyone was included in the discussion of ideas."
"Practical and fun."
"Good fun and you can develop your skills."
"Chance to mix with other year groups."
"good tasks and experiments."
"great experience, especially for degree level."
"Some were shy, otherwise great."
"Being placed in a group and forced to talk to others is a good idea. I had lots of fun getting to know people in my groups."
"Experience in learning new techniques that I could bring into my project. Things I may not have tried/considered if I hadn't come to this workshop."
"Great fun and very useful learning experience."
"It was amazing."
"Nice and relaxed and friendly."
"Very enjoyable, liked the Kit Kats!"

Things to improve

"More time, whole day."
"More of it, more time."
"Make it longer!'
"More things to do, longer day."
"I will leave the ideas up to you guys as the last two were brilliant."

THANK YOU

A huge thank you to everyone involved in two great days and a massive thank you to Terri McManus, Rebecca McClelland and Brian Davis and Ronan McGrath for their fantastic work.

For more information about the project please contact Christine Blaney at c.blaney@ulster.ac.uk