Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Carter, and I'm gonna be guiding you through today's lesson on the power of collaboration.

We're going to be looking at how we can work together effectively, which means that we are gonna need to collaborate effectively together.

I'd like you to engage really as much as you can with every single task.

Give each task a really good go, and I'm sure we're gonna have some fantastic learning today.

Let's get started.

In order to understand our learning today, there are a few keywords we need to be able to use fluently.

Starting with collaborative, working together with others to achieve a common goal or complete a task.

That's how we're going to be working today.

Participants, people who take part in an activity, event, or competition.

Community, a group of people who share common interests, goals, experiences or values.

I'm sure you can think of quite a few communities that you participate in.

By the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to say, "That I can contribute to a collaborative artwork, which highlights the importance of community." Through our lesson today, we're going to have three learning cycles.

Starting with planning a collaborative artwork.

We are then going to move on to making individual portraits and finally combining portraits together to make a collaborative artwork.

Let's get started planning our collaborative artwork.

So what is collaboration? A collaboration is when a group of people work together to achieve a common goal.

Collaboration can involve sharing ideas, helping each other, and combining strengths and experiences.

I wonder if you can think of any collaborations you've participated in.

Check for understanding.

True or false.

A collaboration is when a group work together to achieve a common goal, sharing ideas, helping each other, combining strengths and experiences.

Pause the video and decide if you think that that is true or false.

How did you get on? Well done if you said that was true.

Working together to achieve a common goal through the sharing of ideas, helping each other, and combining strengths and experiences is a collaboration.

Artists create community spaces for dialogue and creativity, enabling the participants to, share experiences, confront challenges, and see new possibilities.

Establishing a collaborative framework is key to this process.

The process of creating collaborative frameworks might look like this.

Defining your topic.

So that would be deciding what the topic of your artwork would be about.

Assembling your participants.

So who needs to be part of that community that you are going to work together with? Who are those participants? And depending on your topic might depend on who you select as a participant.

Setting goals together.

Facilitating engagement.

So working out how we're gonna work together? How we're gonna keep people excited about working together.

Creating the artwork.

And then showcasing and reflecting on the project and what that's been able to achieve.

So that's defining the topic, assembling the participants, setting goals together, facilitating engagement, creating art, and showcasing and reflecting.

So second to check for understanding.

Which is the missing step? So we've got defining the topic, a missing step, setting goals, facilitating engagement, creating art, and showcasing and reflecting.

Pause the video and identify which step has been missed off this list.

How did you get on? Well done if you said assembling the participants.

Assembling the participants is a crucial step in collaborative art.

It's shaped the goals and the outcomes.

Some people believe that the participants in a project are less important than the artist.

They think participants are just making what the artist tells them.

In a collaborative project the experiences and contributions of all the individuals is vital to the work.

Working collaboratively can mean working together on one artwork, so all at once.

Or it can mean working in parallel and bringing those ideas together.

It can also be a combination of the two processes.

And you can see here we've got some students working collaboratively all on the same artwork, and we've got some students working in parallel.

There are many ways that artists collaborate on projects to share the experiences of individuals and their communities.

Some examples are, "Culture for a Changing City Community Mural" by Paint the Change, Halima Khanom and Rich Mix.

"The Leap" are a Bradford based action learning programme who run community art projects and they have all sorts of different types of projects.

And "There's no place" from 2024 lead by Jakkai Siributr.

Taco Action is led by artist Holly Graham that make public anti-racist community led actions in Thamesmead.

Here, Jun shares, "We are making a collaborative portrait, and I think it should focus on our friendship." Izzy adds, "As we are all connected by our school, I want to adapt to the school logo and add in the idea of growing up." The collaborative framework for this project looks like this.

So we've got the topic, portraits to celebrate our school.

The participants being our class.

The goals are to celebrate unity and friendship.

The engagement is working individually and coming together to create the mural.

The artwork is a series of portraits that are joined together with patterns and symbols.

And then presenting will be where we showcase and reflect at the end.

So let's get started on making our decisions about our collaborative framework.

So for Task A one, I would like you to work as a group to decide the goals for the task.

You need to decide the main concept for the artwork and how that will be symbolised.

So in that prior example, they were looking at friendship and community, and they were employing their school logo as a symbol, not only of growth, but also a friendship.

So this for you could include the meaning behind the colours you choose, the size that you're gonna work, and any extra imagery that you would like to add to layer in meaning.

Pause the video and have those conversations as a group to make the decisions about your collaborative artwork.

Well done.

How did those conversations go? Hopefully we're able to include everybody's ideas and listen to all of the different options.

I'm sure you've come up with some really creative things.

You may have agreed something like this.

Izzy shares, "We will only use warm colours for the portraits to symbolise the unity in the community but the motives can be any colour to show that we're all individuals too." Sam adds, "Our portraits will need to fill an A5 sheet of paper but our overall work will be A1 in size." Jun adds, "We will add oak leaves and acorns as representations of our school logo and the concept of growth." I wonder what you've come up with? We're now moving on to our second learning cycle, making individual portraits.

Artists use different approaches to create realistic portrait, painted portraits.

They can draw from life, they can draw from photography, they can draw from imagination.

Artists use accurate facial proportions and expressions to create recognisable accurate portraits of their subject.

True or false? So first check for understanding in this cycle.

Artists can create recognisable realistic portraits of their subject without using accurate facial proportion.

Pause the video and decide if you think that statement is true or false.

Welcome back.

What did you decide? Well done if you said that that was false.

Artists use accurate facial proportion and expression to create recognisable accurate portraits of their subject, as this is the best way to ensure the exact details of the subject are captured.

Oil pastel transfer is one skill artists can use to create realistic portraits from photography.

In order to do this, you would take your image and cover the back of that photo with oil pastel.

You want it to be fairly well covered, but don't worry if you've got a little bit of white texture showing through.

You may also want to hold it up to the light with the image facing you so that you can see that the oil pastel has completely covered the whole area that you're going to be drawing.

You then want to use masking tape to tape down your oil pastel image onto the paper that you wish to draw onto.

Make sure that the photo is facing you and the oil pastel is touching the paper surface.

You then need to trace the outlines using a broken line.

And by that I mean if you draw every single outline of every feature of the face, you're gonna end up with an outcome that looks quite cartoony, and actually quite unrealistic if you draw all of the lines around the side of the nose, that top section here, and it will create quite an unusual look.

It's actually the reason we can see that shape is to do with shade rather than a definitive line.

Whereas lines like the edge of the lip, the bottom of the nose, and around the eyes and eyebrows should be more of a defined line.

If you use a broken line as well, you are giving yourself the detail, but you are not actually drawing the entire thing, which allows you to develop it further in the next stage.

And then finally, when you are ready, you can remove the oil pastel to see your outline that you've created.

Be careful not to remove the oil pastel before you've finished, especially not removing it completely, because it'll be very difficult to tape it back in the exact same spot.

And you may find that you end up with almost like a double image because you've placed it down in a slightly different place.

Okay, so check for understanding.

What is the impact of not covering the back of the photo image with oil pastel.

Is it A, the image will transfer fully and in detail.

Is it B, the image will not print at all.

Or is it C, the image will print lightly and may be hard to see.

Pause the video and decide which you think is the correct answer.

Welcome back.

Well done if you said the image will not print at all.

The image will only transfer when there's oil pastel applied to the back of the photo and pressure is applied.

So it's all about the pressure of your pen or pencil onto that image, pushing the oil pastel from the back of your photo onto the paper.

So you must make sure that every part that you are gonna want to draw has oil pastel behind.

Second check for understanding.

What is the impact of not taping down your image? Is it A, the image might move while drawing? Is it B, the image might be double transferred? Or is it C, the image might be quicker to create.

Pause the video and decide which of these will be impacted or will be the effect, sorry, if you do not take down your image.

How did you get on? Well done if you said it was both A and B.

The image might move whilst you're drawing and that might cause a double transfer.

Okay, so we're gonna start Task B, practical activity.

We're gonna create an individual portrait to add to the collaborative portrait to promote a positive school identity.

You're going to need to get us task one.

Select the portraits that you're going to work from.

You could use your school photos, include your uniform, or think about the people you want to include.

Pause the video and make those decisions now.

Well done.

How did you get on? Did you find you all agreed on the images you wanted to use? You may have, decided as Jacob shares here, "We've included everyone in our class as well as some members of support staff." And Sofia includes, "Our photos are a little blurry, but we will still be able to trace from them." I wonder what images you chose? Okay, for task two.

We're now going to create our portrait oil pastel transfer.

You should secure your image to the paper with masking tape.

Ensure the oil pastel covers the whole of the back of your image.

Pause the video and get those outlines drawn now.

Okay, so for task three, you are now going to use watercolour to add tone.

Use a monochromatic colour palette so that's only one colour, and add tone to your portrait.

You could use watercolour techniques like wet-on-wet, where the colour will blend into the other colours 'cause the movement of the pigment will be facilitated by the water.

You could use wet-on-dry, which will give you a much more precise layer of paint.

And remember to alter the angle of your brush.

If you hold your brush really vertically so that you are only touching the surface of the paper with the tip of the brush, you are likely to get a much finer line, especially if you press very softly.

But if you want to cover a larger area, holding the brush quite flat to the surface of your paper will allow more bristles to touch the paper and transfer that pigment across.

You should also think about the direction that you are painting.

If you push your brush away from you, those bristles are gonna separate as you spread them, but if you bring it down towards you, the bristles will stay together which allows you greater control as you're painting.

Pause the video and give yourself a good amount of time to complete this really carefully.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy making your painting? Well done for everything that you have done.

And you may have ended up with something that looks a little bit like this.

Aisha shares, "I'm pleased with how I managed to use monochromatic watercolour to create a tonal self-portrait.

I found working wet-on-wet was good for blending tones, but dry but a dry surface gave me more control." I think she's done a lovely job.

I'm sure yours looks fantastic too.

Okay, so we're moving on to our third learning cycle.

Combining portraits to make a collaborative art.

Conversations that share ideas are a key step in collaboration to ensure, a shared goal, everyone's input is valued, individual strengths are leveraged, and trust building within the group.

Okay, so first, check for understanding for this cycle.

Conversations that involve sharing ideas during collaboration help build which of the following? Is it A, a focus on personal goals.

Is it B, consistent outcomes from all participants.

Or is it C, trust within the group.

Pause the video and decide which answer you think is correct.

Well done if you said trust within the group.

Collaborative conversations build trust within a group.

Effective conversations involve, active listening, positive body language, making eye contact, turn taking, asking questions, repeating what you understand, and staying on topic.

This check for understanding, I'd like you to fill in the gaps in this list.

So it's the fill the gaps in this list of signs of an effective collaborative conversation.

Active.

Positive body language, making eye contact, turn taking, asking, then repeating what you understand and staying on topic.

Pause the video and decide what words have been taken out of this statement.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? Really well done if you said active listening and asking questions.

Listening to hear and to understand and asking questions to make sure that you have understood what's being communicated are really important steps in an effective collaborative conversation.

Collaborative projects which form community connection over about challenges in a community can include, the "Disability and migration: a mural for social change" which was led by Rebecca Yeo in collaboration with Andrew Bolton.

The "200 Nationalities 1 NHS" which is a mural painted by Paint the Change and Rich Mix.

And in social action projects artists work closely with the community as individuals to come together to confront common challenges and create new paths forward.

For our practical task for this cycle, I'd like you to work collaboratively as a group to compose your work from Task A.

You should, work in a small group, cut out your portraits and then test various compositions.

So with your portraits cut out, you then test out different ways of composing those portraits to make your overall collaborative artwork.

Experiment with different compositions and share everybody's ideas.

You don't have to decide which one you're gonna go with until the end, so everybody's ideas should be seen first.

And then have your collaborative conversation to decide which you will progress forward with.

Make sure you include all of the work and listen to each other and be respectful.

Pause the video and make your decisions now about your composition.

Well done.

How did you get on? Were you surprised at all the different options you came up with? Well done.

You might have experimented the different compositions that look a little bit like this, or this, or something like this.

You may have come up with a much larger number of different options.

So for our second task, we're gonna work collaboratively as a group to add details using paint to create links and connections between the images to create our joint work.

You could, use pattern and colour to connect the portraits.

You could link the work with cohesive colours.

You could add text or quotes to express your idea.

There may be common phrases that are used in your school that you would like to include, and it may be more about your relationships with each other.

But it's important that you share all of your ideas together before you start adding them.

Pause the video and start including your additional details to join the portraits and make your collaborative art.

Well done.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy your working together? Are you impressed with the quality of the work you've been able to produce by working as a group? I'd imagine so.

You might have taken the time.

So Jacob shares here that they took the time to share and include everyone's ideas.

"Our joint work is about a whole group." And Laura includes that, "We use long swirls between the portraits to show the connections of friendship between us." And Sofia adds, "We used oak leaves and acorns to represent our school, Oak National Academy, and it shows ideas of growth." So in our lesson today of making a collaborative portrait, we now know that a collaboration is when a group work together to achieve a common goal through sharing ideas, combining strengths and experiences.

The collaborative art can bring communities together and make connections.

And art can be a tool for helping people share experiences, confront challenges, and see new possibilities.

Well done for all your work today and working so effectively in a group.

I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson.