Manufacturing Monuments a retrospective of work by Dave Gunning

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1 Manufacturing Monuments a retrospective of work by Dave Gunning 16 October 8 January 2011 Open Cast Mining at Bilston Steelworks Site Teacher s Pack

2 BILSTON CRAFT GALLERY GENERAL INFORMATION Craftsense Craftsense is Bilston Craft Gallery's permanent exhibition displaying the best of our craft and decorative art collections. Pupils can explore three hundred years of craft history together with works from leading figures of the contemporary craft scene. Pupils will be stimulated by handling materials relating to the exhibits and exploring various information stations. An introductory talk to Craftsense is available on request. A Craftsense teacher s resource book with information and a wide variety of ideas to use whilst at the Craft Gallery, as well as back in school, can be obtained from the gallery shop. A DVD, Raw to Refined, showing three makers designing and making work in ceramic, metal and glass can be purchased to support students in school. Craftplay Craftplay is a creative play project with a specially designed activity space. All the sessions held here encourage child-centred learning through discovery and creativity and respond to the exhibitions. Sessions can be for children in nursery and reception classes. Craft Interpreter A Craft Interpreter is available on Wednesdays to help you get the most from your visit please ring and book if you would like the Craft Interpreter to lead a session in the gallery for you. Schools are charged 1.50 per pupil for this bespoke service schools signed up for a Service Level Agreement will get this service as part of their package. On other days introductory talks by gallery staff are available with prior notice. Craft Workshop Room Schools can hire this room for teacher-led activities. The room is equipped with pencils, erasers, rulers, crayons, scissors, paper and other craft equipment. We can also provide clipboards for use when drawing in the galleries. Garden There is a large garden to the rear of the gallery, which is a suitable space for children to eat their lunch in good weather. Facilities We have male, female and disabled toilets, and there is a lift for disabled access to the first floor and craft workshop room. Gallery Shop The gallery sells craftwork by practising makers at a range of prices. There are also pocket money items for sale in our gift shop. If you prefer, you can pre-order bags at set prices. Coach Parking We do not have on-site parking for coaches but there is space in the road directly opposite the gallery, and there are various free car parks in Bilston. Opening Hours Sunday and Monday: Closed Tuesday and Thursday: am pm Wednesday: am 7.00 pm Friday: am pm Saturday: am 4.00 pm

3 Manufacturing Monuments a retrospective of work by Dave Gunning 16 October January 2011 CONTEXT Dave Gunning is a local, Bilston-born artist who has a passion for recording landscapes. This retrospective of his work shows his fascination with the industrial landscapes of the West Midlands and also conveys the energy and connection he feels with ancient Bronze Age burial sites and monuments from across the UK. For both these types of landscapes Gunning has recorded the subject at first hand, travelling around the local region or across the UK, drawing on-site sketches. These sketches have then been reworked into etched metal plates which he can use to produce etchings or they can be works in their own right. Dave Gunning s work has captured forever the urban landscape of the Black Country, however many of these views are now gone and some of the industries portrayed have disappeared. Through his images he has recorded the pride he has for the region and combined this with the depth of his emotional response to vividly capture the sense of place. In the exhibition visitors will find etchings, etched metal plates and pencil drawings. All the works have either an OS grid reference or UTM geographic coordinates (longitude and latitude). This will allow people to visit the sites and view them as they are now, perhaps drawing or photographing the place themselves to continue the process of recording of the landscape. There are more details on the website of how you can join in here: Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber ARTIST Dave Gunning demonstrates how he inks up and prints an etching off an etched metal plate in a short video on his website: TOPICS TO EXPLORE Teachers and group leaders can build the visit into a creative project based around: Science: rocks and stone, fossils Maths/Geography: grid references; mapping and Ordnance Survey co-ordinates Literacy: story telling based on images from the show, writing about memories; creating trails with reference points for pupils to find and writing poems about what they can see from these specific points Art and design: landscape drawing, drawing buildings, recording architecture, photography, printing methods, development of ideas, building skills in critical analysis, and personal responses.

4 KS1 & 2 The exhibition supports: Art QCA Unit 2C Can buildings speak? Pupils can explore how Dave Gunning has drawn buildings from observation. Art QCA Unit 4A Viewpoints Research how artists print or record landscapes by sketching. Art QCA Unit 4C Journeys Adapt this unit to record the journey around the local environment and record this through printmaking, collage and photography. See the ideas below (projects to do back in school) for ways of developing this into a project. Art QCA Unit 6C A sense of place Pupils can see the way that Dave Gunning has responded to landscapes in different ways. Start discussions about the changes in the local area by looking at Dave Gunning s work. Examine how the artist has chosen the composition of the work to emphasise chosen objects. Discuss why he has chosen a particular viewpoint. What is the difference between portraying these views as etchings or pencil sketches to having photographs of the same views? What ideas about the environment are communicated by choosing the different recording methods? What do the pupils feel about the work on display? Dave Gunning drawing on-location in Ironbridge KS3 & GCSE and beyond Use the exhibition to support the following subjects: Art line, tone and texture investigations, mark making work, composition, critical analysis, printing techniques. The Craft Interpreter can be booked on a Wednesday to show the stages of creating a metal printing plate, with examples, and other printing equipment to handle and explore. Creative and Media Diploma work nationally recognised, local artist s work Travel and Tourism Diploma visiting/assessing a tourist venue, researching creative industries in the local area and nationally, putting on an exhibition/show, writing a review of an exhibition, ideas for practical projects that develop the audience for exhibitions (marketing /audience development). The exhibition also supports: Art QCA Unit 7C Recreating landscapes students can use a visit to support research into the methods, approaches and intentions of the artist and his response in 2D. They will be able to discuss how the works show the feelings of the artist about the places. Students can then produce their own sketches and art work conveying the mood of a place.

5 IDEAS FOR TEACHER-LED ACTIVITIES AT THE GALLERY (all ages) Mark making: Fold an A4 sheet twice horizontally and twice vertically to create a grid of squares. Fill each square with a different repeated mark. Copy the marks made by Dave Gunning in his etchings and think of your own. Collect sketches of the different window and door shapes from around the Gallery. Use as the starting point for a discussion comparing features of the Gallery s building to your school/college building s features or those of your home and how the use of a building affects its design. What sort of buildings can pupils see in Dave Gunning s work? What can you tell about the use of the buildings from the design features of these buildings? Find the image Ettingshall Railway Bridge. On the label Dave Gunning says that My father used that phone to let the world know I was born. As a group think about different major events that happen in people s lives. What big event in your life would you like to record and what landscape or building reminds you of this? Draw it from memory. Ettingshall Railway Bridge Choose a picture to work from and recreate part or all of this work by lifting off pencil graphite with an eraser: Using the side edge of the pencil, cover cartridge paper or a blank postcard with soft graphite, to completely cover the paper. Then use an eraser to remove the dark tones. By removing differing amounts of graphite you can leave areas of varying tones and create the image. Fine lines/details can be added afterwards with a pencil. Note how all the works have grid references. Draw a rough map of the gallery on a large sheet of paper and overlay a grid: A1, A2, A3 etc. Pupils have to draw one of the works on display on a small piece of card (e.g. half a blank postcard) and note its position on the grid. On the reverse of the card they have to write the starting point grid reference (their chosen work) and then another work in a different grid reference. They have to explain the different emotions that the two works evoke and see if through descriptions of mood and feelings a colleague can find the two pictures.

6 Mark making: imagine touching the surfaces of the objects shown in the pictures. Try to invent marks that show how these things might feel if you could reach out and touch them. The idea is not to draw a picture but to collect ideas to use later. Collecting lines: examine Dave Gunning s pictures and also look around the gallery. Record the lines you find interesting. It s not necessary to draw the objects, just the lines. These could be horizon lines, roof lines, roads or paths, lines made by trees or clouds or lines from the architecture of the gallery space. Collections of lines can be the starting point for new pictures or just practice of how to record shapes. Investigate the tones, lines and marks within Dave Gunning s work. Small groups of two or three pupils examine one picture and reproduce it using just tones, lines or marks. Then swap activities. If they are working in just tones they must not draw out silhouettes of shapes with a line. They can start by looking for the darkest areas and the deepest shadows, then note where the light tones are. Encourage them to draw lightly to start with and build up the darker tones gradually. The line drawings should have no shading. Mark making should be just that no outlines to fill in! Bilston Scrapyard Choose one of the landscapes to work from with a group of three. Give each person a strip of paper. One records the foreground, one the middle ground and one the background. Use these strips to help you explain perspective and the relative sizes of objects and also aerial perspective and how the colours of objects further away change.

7 PROJECTS TO DO BACK AT SCHOOL (all ages) Look at how the school grounds change at different times of the year. Pupils stand at a specific point and record what they see. On the reverse they comment on why they chose the spot and also, as the project progresses, will be able to record what has changed compared to the previous time. Start a project on architecture with a study of how to draw basic shapes. Develop this work by looking at buildings and spotting the shapes within the building. Draw the buildings as line drawings and as silhouettes. Develop this into cut paper shapes that can be collaged together to create a landscape. If the collage work is created using sugar paper shapes, this can be inked up with a roller using block printing ink and printed onto cartridge paper. Working in monochrome or a very limited colour palette reflects the way that Dave Gunning s work is presented. Ground cover, rocks and stones: take rubbings of surfaces in and around the school. Cut out and collage pictures of natural landscapes using these, create shadow and 3D effects with different textured rubbings on the same coloured paper. Develop this work into wax resist work, colouring with ink washes. Experimenting with the lifting off technique using graphite and soft erasers Have a go at printing with cardboard printing plates. Build up a printing plate with card shapes glued down onto a stiff, card support. Keep the shapes adjacent rather than overlapping. Ink the plate with block printing ink applied with a roller. Try monoprint drawing: roll black block printing ink in a thin even layer on a sheet of Perspex. Gently lay a piece of paper on top without pressing down on the paper. Take a line for a walk over the paper trying not to press with anything except the tip of the pencil. Peel off the paper to reveal the drawing. The process can be extended by rolling different colours of ink on the Perspex, by trying different thicknesses of drawing tips e.g. a blunt end of a pencil, a wooden spoon, a biro, and also by using your finger to rub over areas you want shaded. Try the process with landscape drawings.

8 Experiment with found objects as printing blocks. The exhibition features local industrial sites. Research what metal objects were made locally and use things like keys and metal objects as printing blocks. Ink them up with block printing ink applied with a dabber- made from a stuffed sock. Tie up and dip the toe end in a thin layer of printing ink and roll firmly onto the printing block. Use the printed shapes to build up an abstract image or use them to create a picture of a factory. Perhaps ask the Archives for photos of local factories as inspiration for the pupils work. Research geo-caching on the web. Try a similar idea to this within the school grounds by having different drawing materials located in different places around the school and students have to find the locations to complete a piece of art work. Dave Gunning s work allows us to reflect on the changes that have occurred over time in the local area: buildings and factories are demolished and people s lives changed as a result. Research the 4am project on the web. It is the idea of a photographer in Birmingham: Karen Strunks is a professional photographer, blogger, creative entrepreneur and director of the global photography project: 4am Project. Her passion for new and innovative ideas has led to her becoming a key figure in the social media community in her home city of Birmingham, UK. The project is all about taking a photo at a certain time on a certain date. Challenge students to come up with a similar idea but that one that shows changes over time. Pupils drawing on-location Printmaking with Dave Gunning Develop a large scale collage work of a local landscape. Develop the work in stages starting with each student making sketches and using mark-making to create a detailed picture. Choose one picture for the whole group to work from. Each student creates a collage of the chosen image. Then the original picture is divided up into squares corresponding to the number of students in that group. Each student is given a section to work on and they create a large collage on a piece of stiff cardboard which is then assembled with the others into one large picture. To bring the image together as one coherent piece, the whole image is painted in shades of a single colour.

9 The craft workshop room at the Gallery Please contact the Gallery to book a visit: Bilston Craft Gallery Mount Pleasant Bilston Wolverhampton WV14 7LU Tel: Fax: E: bilstoncraftgallery@wolverhampton.gov.uk