TY animation project

The TYs have just started what I hope will be an inspiring animation project. We are exploring different styles of animation from traditional hand-drawn images and stop-motion modelling to computer generated images. The idea is to explore the world around them through animation and we have taken four recent news items as our starting points. One group will be developing a campaign video for a young politician, putting forward their own vision for the future of Ireland, taking the Dylan Haskins campaign as inspiration: www.dylanhaskins.ie
The inspiration for the second group's project is taken from Upstart's aim to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011: www.upstart.ie
Group three is asking the question "Do hard times make for great art?" www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0122/1224288049794.html 
The final group are also focusing on how street art comments on life taking inspiration from adwart.com/gameoflove/ which was designed in memory of the couple who tragically drowned on that stretch of canal during the big freeze in December. 
It will be interesting to see how it develops, hopefully we'll showcase the results here on completion.

Bits and pieces

Here's a few images from the art room over the last week or two. Some of the TYs, including band members, came in after school to make the banner for Freefall, best of luck to them in the final of Longford Youth Factor tonight.

Art on Google

Google have launched a great new website www.googleartproject.com that allows you to look inside art galleries from around the world. You can take a tour of the gallery, examine the paintings and zoom in for a closer view. There's lots of information on the galleries, artists and works available from the drop down menus and links to you tube videos and the gallery websites. You could cover the whole art history course from here, without having to travel around the world. Here's one link to get you started: www.googleartproject.com/museums/thyssen/swaying-dancer-dancer-in-green-12
See what else you can find, enjoy!

Tate kids website

I thought some of you might like this link, you can add your own graffiti to the Tate museum wall here: kids.tate.org.uk/games/street-art/ There's also lots more to discover on the Tate gallery site so follow some of the links and explore it.

Year of Craft 2011

2011 has been designated the Year of Craft by the Craft Council of Ireland and Craft Northern Ireland. To celebrate traditional skills and contemporary work events and activities including exhibitions and workshops will be running throughout the country all year. Check out www.craftinireland.com for more details.
Showcase 2011 which features the diverse work of Irish designers and craftspeople from ceramics and jewellery to soap and scarves is currently running in the RDS. Have a look at the website, especially the gallery: showcaseireland.com/gallery/ to get an idea of the wide range of crafts on display.

Restoration of St. Mel's Cathedral Stained Glass

There's an article in today Irish Times about the restoration of the Harry Clarke Studios stained glass windows in St. Mel's Cathedral. You can read it in full here: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0121/1224288004269.html

A photo montage of a section of the new stained glass window at St Mel's Cathedral, Longford, by Abbey Stained Glass Studio in Dublin.Photograph: Ken Ryan (from today's Irish Times)

The Moderns app

If any of you have an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad you can download a new app for the Moderns exhibition in IMMA at http://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/the-moderns/id414863276?mt=8
It should be a useful reminder of our gallery trip for fourth and fifth years and hopefully others might find it interesting too.

TY book project

The TYs are starting a book project today. Hopefully this will give them some inspiration. All images were found through Google searches and put together in MovieMaker.

Art history video project

Fourth and fifth years got a crash course in Windows Movie Maker today and researched some Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists at the same time. Two of the videos were completed before the end of class. Hopefully they will be useful for quick revision of the leaving cert course later, more will follow but here are quick introductions to Renoir and Pissaro.

Happy New Year

Welcome back everyone. Tuesday's group (First, Second and Third Years) are focusing on one of the Junior Cert themes 'Tone and Texture' for the next few weeks. Here's a couple of unfinished still life drawings from yesterday: