Hello, my name is Mrs. Carter, and I'm gonna be helping you through today's lesson on Art and war.

It's quite a big lesson with some really difficult topics, so think about how you're going to engage with today's lesson, you're gonna need to go into it with an open mind and be ready to do some hard thinking.

I know we're going to learn lots and lots today and that you're gonna be fantastic as we're doing this, we're gonna have a look at why artists might make work about war, and we're gonna think about how we might communicate through our artwork, let's get started.

By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to say that I can explore and use different artistic techniques to convey themes of war and conflict.

In order to do this, there are a couple of keywords that we need to be really fluent with as we're working through the lesson, the first of these is propaganda.

Propaganda is artwork created to influence people's opinions, or actions, by promoting a message.

You might be quite comfortable with this word from some of your history lessons.

Commission, when someone pays an artist to create a specific piece based on their requests and specifications.

This is quite an important word within art, commissioning artwork is a way that people can have an artist create work for them, and sometimes that's an individual, sometimes it might be an organisation, or it can even be local or country governments.

Our lesson today has got two learning cycles.

We will start looking at how we can use marks and textures to express emotion, we'll then move on to how we can create impactful imagery.

Let's get started looking at how we can use marks and textures to express emotion.

Many artworks have been created about war and conflict, each with different purposes and perspectives.

Propaganda, commissioned war art, and personal responses.

Do you think you've seen any artwork that's about war or conflict? Propaganda is artwork created to influence people's opinions, or actions, by promoting a message.

Propaganda art is often printed in large quantities so that many people would be influenced by it.

Check for understanding.

Okay, so do you think this is true or false? Propaganda art are one-off pieces of work? Pause the video and decide if you think that that statement is true or false.

Well done if you said, false, propaganda art was often reproduced and printed in large quantities so that many people would see it.

Propaganda art is often mass produced through the printing process.

Artists might then use: patriotic colours, a limited but eye-catching colour palette, so these two things relate to each other.

Patriotic colours are often linked to the colours that are seen on a flag, and those colours can often be used in propaganda art to create an affinity with the message that's being sent, but you'd also need to limit the number of colours that you include due to the printing process.

Flat textures are another restriction possibly, that could be created by propaganda art, especially when we look at some of those historical sources.

Short slogans, because you want it to be quick and easy to remember.

Symbolic imagery, such as flags.

Commissioned war art is another art form created at the request of the government.

This can influence the artwork's purpose and perspective.

Non-commissioned artists would have more creative freedom to select marks and textures.

How might artists be influenced if a government is paying for their art? You could pause the video now and have a conversation, or note down your ideas as a response to that question.

Okay, check for understanding, true or false? Commissioned war art was always critical of wars.

Pause the video and decide if you think that that is true or false? <v ->Well done if you said, false.

</v> Commissioned art is created and paid for by a client, war art is often commissioned by the government, meaning that an artist may not be free to criticise the war.

How would you describe these marks in this piece of work? Look closely at the image, what words would you use to describe these marks in this piece of work? The use of expressive, unpredictable textures can be seen in this work.

Artists can use marks and textures to reflect their feelings and experiences of war.

I wonder if you wrote down any words that are linked to emotions that may begin to make that link between how you think the artist might have wanted to express a feeling.

Throughout history, artists have created artwork about war from many different perspectives.

Horace Pippin made work about World War I from an Allied forces viewpoint.

Pippin used muted colours and chaotic, busy marks in the trees and barbed wire of his work, "The End of the War: Starting Home," which was made between 1930 and 1933, and depicted the aftermath of World War I.

Julie Mehretu's "Epigraph Damascus " from 2016, layers gestural mark-making over architectural drawings of the destroyed buildings in Damascus, in Syria, blending abstraction with scars of war.

Okay, so for our first practise task, I'd like you to experiment with mark-making using paint to convey feelings of fear, chaos, and stress.

For this, you could: take inspiration from any artist that you've looked at.

You could test techniques like impasto, sgraffito, dripping, and splattering.

Impasto is when you apply paint incredibly thickly, so that you get a raised surface over the material that you are working on of.

Sgraffito is when you scratch back into the surface of the paint that you've applied.

This can be particularly effective if you've placed a different layer underneath, so maybe contrasting colour, maybe the tone's wildly different, but where you then scratch back into it, you can create a shape that can be seen.

In my example, you might be able to notice on the video, that in some places, I have applied sgraffito, through a cardboard layer that I've cut into so that I get these kind of scratched shapes, and in other places, I've actually turned the paintbrush on the back and used the back end of the paintbrush to move the paint around.

Just make sure if you do that, that you wipe off the handle of the brush before you continue.

Consider the colour palette that you use.

Can you employ colour to create a deeper link with the emotions that you are trying to express? And cover your whole page, this is important for what we are doing next, pause the video, and give yourself a good amount of time to experiment with all of those different ways of applying paint to create different mark-making, linking back to those feelings of fear, chaos, and stress.

For your second task, I would like you to experiment with mark-making, and using paint to convey these qualities, patriotic, strong, and brave.

You could: test techniques, where you mask the edges and use bold lines, or print with a ruler.

So for masking, you want to make sure that you've removed some of the stickiness from the masking tape so it won't tear the page underneath.

I often find if you just place that on some fabric and peel it back off again, that works really effectively.

Make sure that you don't spread your paint underneath that masking tape layer.

With printing with a ruler, you can just apply paint to the side, to the thin edge of your ruler, and then press it down nice and firmly to get a thin, but effective edge and line.

Consider your colour palette.

Are there colours that link to a particular country? Think about maybe the flag, would those colours work to create that patriotic look? Cover your whole page, this is important for what we are gonna do in Task B.

Pause the video and create your page where you've experimented with mark-making using paint to convey the qualities of patriotic, strong, and brave.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy the process of testing how you're using paint and applying the mark-making in ways? I hope so.

You might have created a couple of pages, which looks something like these, and Sofia shares, "Both of these works are bold, but the masking tape version, on the left, feels more organised, while the varied marks in the other convey disorder in relation to war." Do you feel that the difference between your two pieces is quite big? Okay, so we're moving on to creating impactful imagery.

Look at these two images.

What stories do these images tell us about war? You might want to pause the video, and have a conversation now, about whether these stories are the same, and what kind of ideas you get about war from these two images.

Artists might wish to influence our opinion on war in their art.

This can be in favour or against war.

One way that they can do this is through the selection and display of impactful imagery.

How do you think imagery of people might differ depending on if the artist is in favour or against the war? I would pause the video now, and just decide how you would answer that question.

Propaganda art often portrays national soldiers or figures as strong and confident, while depicting the enemy figures as physically weak.

Commissioned art tends to capture more authentic moments and natural poses.

And personal response art is influenced by the experiences and emotions or perspectives of the artist.

Look at the image on this page, which version of a war art piece do you think this would most obviously fit into, or do you think there are ways that it might fit into all of the options? Okay, check for understanding, true or false, Artists create only strong figures in their art about war to glorify conflict and heroism? Pause the video and decide if you think that that statement is true or false.

Well done if you said false.

Artists can alter the pose of their figures to create both strong or weak figures, depending on the purpose and perspective of their art and the meaning that they wish to share.

For example, anti-war images may use expressive and injured figures to show the impact of war.

Puppetry can be used to depict stories of war.

It can bring to life and support the telling of often difficult stories.

Examples of this include: The Handspring Puppet Company who created life-size horse puppets for the play "War Horse," to bring the actions of the horse to life.

It wouldn't have been possible the production to have used a real horse because you wouldn't have been able to train a horse to act correctly, and it wouldn't have been particularly appropriate to have a horse in the theatre, so the use of the puppet was vital to be able to tell those stories so that the horse could act out the parts of the narrative that were needed.

The Odessa Puppet Company used puppets to engage with children as they tell difficult stories, this allows them to engage with children in a way that doesn't feel threatening, where Wael Shawky, uses puppetry to examine war as he feels it allows viewers to project themselves onto the figures, making the events of war seem more relatable.

He's well-known for using marionette puppets, which are the ones that have the string and are controlled from above.

I wonder if you think that that deepens the meaning of his work at all? Okay, check for understanding, true or false, Puppetry can be used to depict the stories of war to bring to life and support the telling of often difficult stories? Pause the video and decide if you think that that is true or false.

Well done if you said that that was true.

Puppetry can be used to tell difficult stories, as it allows us to animate characters that can be connected to more easily than human actors.

Puppetry also encourages the audience to project themselves and their experiences onto the puppets.

Artists are not limited to the use of figures to convey their opinion on war.

What other imagery might we see in artwork about war? Use the image here to help you, and pause the video to decide what you think the correct answer is.

Impactful imagery can include: people, and figures, facial expressions, buildings or landmarks, organic forms, like poppies and animals, weaponry, symbolic objects like chains.

Do you think there's any imagery that must always be very detailed and accurate to share meaning? Okay, check for understanding.

I'd like you to fill in the gaps using the word bank.

Impactful imagery can include people, and figures, facial, buildings or, organic, something, like poppies and animals, and one, something, and then symbolic objects, like chains.

Your word bank in words are expression, forms, landmarks, and weapons.

Pause the video and decide which words go into which statements.

Well done, how did you get on? Excellent work, if you said facial expressions, buildings or landmarks, organic forms, or weapons.

Artists making use of impactful imagery in their artworks about war and conflict can include: Donald Rodney's "Soweto/Guernica" from 1989, which uses imagery from Picasso's "Guernica," and silhouetted flames, shields, and weapons to compare the UK conflict with war.

The interesting thing about this piece, is that Donald Rodney is employing impactful imagery created by a prior artist about a previous war, and using that to tell us about something that's happening now, and conflict that was current at the time that he made that work.

Impactful imagery can include this kind of context, so that we can learn more based on what we've already known about.

Kara Walker's "The Jubilant Martyrs of Obsolescence and Ruin" from 2015, also employs silhouettes, creating a battle scene with swords and flags.

Walker's work is quite dramatic and can provoke very strong emotional responses, despite the fact that she uses only silhouettes.

Nancy Spero's "Maypole: Take No Prisoners" from 2007, highlights the faces and expressions of individuals involved in war.

She was also very interested in how she chose to position those figures in the space that she created the work in.

That might be something interesting to think about, how you might position imagery.

Okay, so for our Task B1, we're going to be creating puppets from our mark-making experiments from Task A.

In the additional materials for today's lesson, we have provided this template.

You should: glue the template to the back of your Task A work.

Make sure that the glue covers the whole of the sheet of the paper before you stick it down, you wouldn't want to start cutting out a section and your template to fall away because it's not secured properly.

Cut the shapes neatly.

I would suggest that you cut them in quite a block shape initially, and then you cut into the detail, but if there are large areas that you don't use, make sure that you hang onto them, 'cause you need to save your scraps.

You could create a puppet from each of Task A1 and A2, or combine these into one puppet.

You could, if you have it, secure your puppets with split pins or tape.

This is a video, that goes through a little bit of the detail about how you might go about this.

So you can see that the template has been glued on really accurately, and then the initial cuts, cut quite a large space around the template, before going in to cut in more detail, so to get those accurate shapes.

Make sure that you save your scraps in one area, and that sections of your puppet in a second area, so that it's easy and you don't accidentally lose part of your puppet in your scraps.

So remember, cut around the template carefully, cutting the shapes neatly.

Assemble your puppet carefully, arranging the individual pieces of the template, and you can see some images there that go through that process.

Remember to save your scraps.

Pause the video and create your puppet now.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy it? Was it more fiddly or less fiddly than you were expecting? You have lots of options with the different parts of the puppet that you might choose to use.

Did you find that you thought quite carefully about which ones you liked? Well done, you might have done something like this, and Lucas shares, "I created my figure from my previous mark-making experiments, and it was quite quick.

I like how this has broken up the bold painted lines.

I've also created a flag" Okay, Task 2, create other impactful imagery for your puppets from your mark-making experiments from Task A, so it's a little bit like the flag that Lucas has just said that he's made.

You should: use your scraps from the puppet making, cut the shapes neatly, and consider the scale of your additional elements.

You could think about items such as weapons or tools, flags, or clothing.

I suggest that you flip the scraps over, and you just draw in pencil the shape that you're wanting to produce, before you then cut that out.

Pause the video, and create your additional imagery now.

Okay, and so for Task 3, I'd like you to experiment with different poses using your puppet.

You should move your puppet to create different poses.

Think about words like confidence, strength, or weakness, and fear, and think about what that feels like, and what it would look like in a body.

Consider whether your puppet's pose promotes or opposes war.

Include your other impactful imagery from Task B2, alongside your puppet as props, and you can see that here in the examples, the different ways that the puppets are holding that flag, and that one of them also has a spear.

Record these different experiments and these poses with photography, it'll allow you to document all the different ideas that you've generated through this task.

Pause the video, and start your experiments now.

How did you get on? I wonder if you've been able to produce something a little bit like this? Jun shares, "I was surprised by how small movements could create distinct emotions in the poses.

I tried to create different meanings even though they both hold a flag.

One is surrendering, but the other is not." Do you think you can tell which one is which? It's interesting how we're able to convey those emotions using those poses, so we don't have expressions to help us in this particular work.

Aisha shares, "I included many props with the puppets, to add more meaning.

I feel that the use of tools, like a shovel, created a sense that there are ordinary people and showed more of the impact of war." I wonder if you think that her use of this pose with her kind of bold mark-making, has increased that sense that these are ordinary people or decreased it, what's your opinion? In summary of our lesson, Art and war, art can be used to promote or oppose war, recruit soldiers or justify war.

Art can show the impact of war, including battles and the impact on soldiers and civilians.

Artists can employ marks, textures, and impactful imagery to convey their experiences and emotions related to war.

Artists can use puppets to tell difficult stories of war.

Well done, for all of your efforts today, that hasn't been an easy lesson, you've had to do lots of thinking, and use lots of empathy in today's lesson, and I'm very impressed, and I look forward to seeing you in our next lesson.