Unit 2: Leading An Arts Project

The plan:

I've been stuck for some time about what to do my leadership project on, who with and where. I can't do it at college, that's just not practical, and my house is a little small for organising a big event. Then finally I settled on a plan. No where in the booklet or on the Arts Award website does it specify what kind of community you have to work in and since my community is an online one I see no reason why they can't benefit -even if not in "reality"- from my knowledge.

So I've resolved to grab my friend Maddy, my sister Ruby and my camera and film a clear and concise video tutorial that I will post on youtube and share on my many social media sites that goes through the steps required to create a decorative silk painted panel. Taking you all the way through from planning your original design to ironing it at the end to fix the dye.
The genius to this plan is that the video could potentially instruct millions of people, so a much wider audience than simply holding a workshop could reach.

Risk assessment:
Since this is a relatively simple and easy to manage activity it doesn't present a huge array of potential problems. But some that I have considered are spilling paint on the silk, ripping the silk, the frames breaking, forgetting to film an element of the video, my camera -or sister- being temperamental, Maddy being sick or unable to come and it taking longer to film than we anticipated. Another risk is that no one will find and use the video, though I can't do anything much about that one.

Health and Safety:I'm lucky in that this activity is pretty darn hard to make dangerous. I'm also filming it in my own home with people who are familiar with it. There are only two dangers that I can think of, getting a splinter from the frames or people being allergic to the silk painting materials. Though these are both minor and unlikely risks. We'll be taking regular breaks since two teenagers and a young girl sure do get hungry which negates the risk of fatigue, though silk painting isn't exactly a physically trying pastime.

Jobs:
Maddy will be acting as my volunteer/assistant. I'll be instructing her in what to do and she will also be helping me demonstrate techniques.
Ruby will be filming it all.
And I will be directing, demonstrating and editing the video before hosting it on my pages online.

Materials:
silk (for painting on)
pencil (for sketching the design)
paper
gutta
silk paints
salt
brushes
water
cloths/rags
a wooden frame (to stretch the silk over)
newspaper or boards to work on top of.

Location:
we'll be using my dining room to film in and the dining room table to work on top of.

When:
Monday 18th February

Feedback:
where collecting feedback is concerned I'll film short interviews with Ruby, Erin and Maddy asking them how they thought it went, I will then also be able to read and collect the comments submitted to the video once it is posted online. This will show a wide range of feedback from both the creating process and people's opinions on the finished product.

~*~

So yesterday I hosted my silk painting workshop and tutorial, it went really, really well! We all got something out of it, including our camera woman who went on to create her own in the evening along with Erin who wanted another stab at it. They did this with no help from me, which gives me confidence in my teaching abilities and their attention spans. It took us about four and a half hours to get everything done, but that included waiting for everything to dry, lunch breaks and pauses to watch videos of cats. Bellow you can see some stills from the workshop.

Some possible designs

The storyboard

 

I knocked together a few frames with Maddy whilst Ruby and Erin were out at horse riding.

My finished silk panel

Maddy's finished silk panel

Erin's finished silk panel

Ruby's finished silk panel (that she did without my help)

Erin's finished silk panel (that she did without my help)

If I did this again, or had a chance to re-do it I'd make sure I made better frames or got people to do designs for square pieces of silk, instead of having rectangular designs and square frames. It wasn't a massive problem, but it was just a bit trickier than it should have been to get the silk stretched over the frames. And secondly I'd probably make simple 'how to' sheets with diagrams and stuff just so that I can use them as a tool to illustrate the steps to workshop participants more clearly.
And since this was also a tutorial, here's that video; silk painting tutorial.
And here's the feedback video from the people taking part; feedback video.
Enjoy!

~*~

I wanted to share a few screen shots of comments I've gotten...

And from the feedback video...