Light Up Your Memories Workshop - Printmaking And Stencil Making On Wood Veneer Lanterns

WHEN
Friday 1st April 2011, 10.00am to 4.00pm

WHERE
Location and Facilities
The location for the workshop was spread over two classrooms, both of which are used to teach art and design courses. They both have large tables with chairs that allowed participants plenty of room to work. There are sinks in both rooms

WHO
Facilitators
Gerard Greene (Artist) and Martina Leonard (Teacher Marino College of FE)
Number of Learners 11

Characteristics of Participants
The demographic of the group was all adult learners, 25+ years. The majority of the participants are students of Marino College of Further Education, most of who are students of the F.I.T. (Fast track Into Technology), FETAC Level 4 Course, which is funded by the B.T.E.I. (Back to Education Initiative). The remainders of the students were also either students of Marino College of Further Education, studying Photography or Graphic Design, or they were members of the general public who heard about the workshop through the Five Lamps Arts Festival.

WHY
The F.I.T. students were the main focus for this particular workshop. As part of the research and development of the IDEAL project these students were being monitored during the process of completing an assignment for their Communications Module, which is a mandatory part of their course work.  The assignment in question requires the students to make all preparation and planning necessary to make a 3 to 5 minute presentation to the class, based on a topic of their choice. This will be recorded on video tape and is part of the ‘Personal Interaction’ section of the module. Historically, the approach that students took was simply to choose a topic, use various sources to research this topic and either make a Power Point presentation or make cue cards and use printed photographs as props.

This was not only a very solitary exercise, but did not inspire much creativity and with an already heavy workload of written research, students could become either bored and frustrated or overwhelmed. This assignment has also consistently brought about a lot of anxiety amongst the students, causing a significant amount of distress when making the presentation to the class, the majority of which having little or no public speaking experience.  Also, the fact that the only time students actually had the chance to share the work they had done with the class, was during the filming of the presentation itself, meant that this was adding to the pressure of making the presentation. Students all hoping to make a good impression and not look foolish. I felt that one way of overcoming this was to create situations during the preparation part of the assignment into group activities. The hope was that exposure to each other’s work at every stage of the process would reduce this pressure by being very familiar with each other’s work by the time the presentations would come around. Similarly, to reduce the boredom factor and increase self-motivation (specifically intrinsic motivation), inspiration and creativity, the solution might be to have a group activity where the students would come up with a concept based on a central theme and then create/make a piece of work based on their individual concepts. They could then use this concept and process of making their piece of work, as the subject matter for their presentations.

HOW
Materials for Printmaking
Tracing paper, heavy shiny card, cartridge paper, sugar paper, pencils, nails (to draw with) rulers, scissors/artist’s scalpel, black etching ink, linseed oil, etching/printing press, kitchen towels/tissue.
Additional Materials for Stencil Making on Wood Veneer Lamps:
Mentholated spirits, Shellac crystals, paint brushes, jars, acetate, artist’s scalpel, cutting board, strips of veneer wood (.25 x 1.25 metres), sponges for printing, paper plates.

Process for doing Workshop
1. Light up Your Memories
Themes:
•    Everyone belongs
•    North Strand Bombing 31st May 1941
•    Local crafts and shops
•    Railway and canal images

2. Printmaking
•    Dry point on shiny card. Etching ink (black) and linseed oil
•    Draw theme image on the card with a nail/biro/scribe
•    Roll on ink and print

3. Use drawing and ideas from stage 1.
•   Simplify drawing to make a stencil.
•   Demonstration of: traditional stencil paper making and use. 
•   Stencil ink = poster paint (black) +wallpaper paste
•   Cut out stencils
•   Print stencil onto ash veneer
•   Bend to make cylinder shape and glue
•   Put LED tea lights inside

Practical Considerations while doing workshop
Gerard Greene said that it might be a better idea to run the workshop over two sessions as he ran out of time to show students one of the printing techniques and even with that the session ran over by half an hour. Students said they would have liked more time to make the lantern
When sponging the ink through the stencil onto the wood veneer, make sure not to have too much ink (barely any and build it up in layers) as it will bleed through.

Students said that the most difficult part of the task was cutting out the stencils. They discovered after a couple of attempts at making over-intricate designs, that the more simple/reductive the design/motif the easier it is to cut out.
Students also said they would have liked to see a finished lantern before getting started to give them more of an idea of the finished look
They said one printing technique would be enough to learn in one workshop

VALUE FOR LEARNERS
During the Workshop students said:
•    They were getting a lot more from the assignment by making a personal piece of work as they wouldn’t usually get to create something themselves
•    They said that coming up with a concept for the piece that was so personal to them helped with their learning. They said that by having control over “WHY” they were making the piece, it made it easier to learn “HOW” to make the piece as they had a clear idea of what they were doing and could concentrate on the process.
•    They all spoke about how relaxing the experience was and said that it was a much more fulfilling and enriching experience than simply researching a topic with the old ‘dry’ approach.
•    Students also said that using the technique of tracing from the source material they had gathered (images/photographs/symbols etc) to make drawings for their prints and stencils, meant that they didn’t have the pressure of having to ‘know how to draw’. They also said that it took the fear out of doing the task. They said it gave them confidence in what they were doing and therefore made the task more enjoyable.
•    Students also agreed when asked if the experience had changed their perception of ‘drawing’ and arts and crafts activities, saying that it had encouraged them to try new experiences.
•    There was a real sense of pride and accomplishment from all students with the work they were producing.

VALUE FOR FACILITATORS
Facilitator’s Observations
Facilitator: Martina Leonard, Communications Module Tutor
Something I observed having taught the students all year was that there had previously been incidences of personality clashes in classroom discussions and had created a sense of division among certain individuals in the class. However, during the workshop the entire class was working together as a team, helping each other out and giving each other encouragement and praise. One student even remarked: “It’s lovely that we’re all getting along and helping each other”. As stated above, this assignment was part of the Personal Interaction section of the Communications module and if for no other reason this new approach has to be considered a success by creating a more collegial atmosphere in the class.
It is also important to point out that surprisingly students came in to do the workshop outside of scheduled class time and in fact came in on a day when they were not even supposed to be in the college at all. They were more than happy to do this and even seemed excited about it. I asked some of the students why this was the case. The main response was that, for this particular demographic of student i.e. mature student returning to education possibly having missed out on achieving certain goals in life, both educational and personal, they were at a stage where they had more free time to spend on themselves and were self-motivated enough to want to try new things, and do whatever was necessary to achieve their goals.

One of the most important parts about undertaking this ‘experiment’ with the F.I.T. students is that it has raised some important questions about how to make the Communications Module a more engaging and attractive subject. By diversifying in our approach to teaching certain parts of the Communications Module can we address recurring problems of attendance and by adapting these approaches to other Modules; could this impact on maintaining numbers on courses? This is of course an isolated case study and would need more investigation on a holistic level in the college but, happily this will now be up for debate amongst the teaching staff of Marino College of FE and will be addressed in relation to Quality Assurance evaluation this year.

Evaluation and Comments make by Students after the Oral Presentation of their Work
As a crucial part of the ‘experiment’ was to see how taking part in this project would impact on students reactions to making the oral presentation to their class (as discussed above), it is important to document the results.

Ultimately, the process of doing the project did little to allay the fears of those students who were most anxious about public speaking. Unfortunately, some students said that as they had chosen very personal subject matter behind the concept for their pieces of work i.e. the memory of a parent or sibling who had passed away, they found this harder to talk about. However, the upside of this is that they all said that it was easier to put more work into it and were more determined to get it right because of the very close personal nature of the subject matter. They also all said it was more thought provoking and said that by finding out more about each other’s personal lives, especially personal tragedies, brought them closer together and added to the calm friendly atmosphere.

Students suggested that maybe if they had been able to choose an idea that would symbolize ‘them’ as a class and either make a group lantern or individual lanterns based on the same idea this might have been easier to talk about and still be ‘personal’ enough to each of them to help generate the collegial atmosphere mentioned before.

Overall students said that they appreciated the chance to do something they would never have done otherwise, that they enjoyed the creativity of it and getting the chance to use their own initiative, and that the best part was the class interaction and working so well together – much better than working in isolation and writing  the presentation alone.