Beginning the Arts Award Silver - Took Part in an Exhibition

Oasis Academy Media City Pupils Take Part in an  Exhibition at Eccles Community Art Gallery from 18 June until 9 July, 2016, Eccles Town Centre, Greater Manchester.

Four of the original pupils who took part in the workshops run by the artists/tutors during the Autumn Term of 2015,  have been working towards an exhibition of their own in a local community gallery.The workshops offered to a dozen pupils were inspired by some of the ordinary objects from the Exhibition "Out of the Ordinary" of Colin Rodney Burrows' paintings,

The remaining pupils have been developing their painting techniques during the Spring and Summer Terms this year, and, as part of the Silver Arts Award, they have worked together to arrange an exhibition for themselves of their current art work.

Olivia Mankondo, may have been inspired by the Egyptian history of beadmaking when she decided to paint a portrait of an Egyptian Princess.  Tim Broughton, not content with merely showing the pupils how to make beads, was determined to explain the history of jewelry and other artifacts, crafted by the Egyptians.  He even brought in a piece of ancient pottery which had been excavated by his daughter in the North West of England.
















Yoelle Lalaye took a bold approach and decided to paint an impressive snake entwining a female figure on a large. canvas.  Her first inspiration was a reference to evil battling good,  however the title was changed to "Trapped Mankind".  Yoelle obviously took note of the painting workshops, whereby attention was given to the importance of interesting backgrounds, and she has spent many hours painting the individual scales on the snake.


                                                                         



Fanni Jori also paid particular attention to her rainbow-coloured background on the painting below,  Her painting was inspired by her feelings of happiness and the fact that she loves butterflies.  They are so beautifully painted, that she was encouraged to name the painting "The Beautyflies".






Destiny Jones is a member of the team which arranged the exhibition, although she has been busy with prior commitments and was unable to undertake much painting.  She is represented in the exhibition by one of her best works from a previous workshop,  This work features an image of a pendant or a brooch, made by working on several different coloured layers of felt, which have been sewn together and a design drawn on the top black layer of felt, and stiched around the outlines.  The felt has been cut away to reveal the image in all its glory!

                                                                   


A Poster to advertise the pupils' participation in the Exhibition was devised by the whole team and displayed around the school.

Out of the Ordinary - An Arts Award Bronze Course in Printmaking Techniques.- Tutor Roisin Keown

Printmaking Techniques Course - Supported by the Arts Council
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Following on from the painting techniques course,. the selected year 9 and 10 pupils (ages 13-15) at Oasis Academy, King William Street in Salford, were offered this printmaking techniques course by Roisin Keown.

Roisin Keown is a recent graduate of Manchester Metropolitan School of Art, who specialises in painting.. She makes gigantic paintings using a technique, which consists of painting stretched calico with an oil-based primer, so that the surface is extremely smooth, and she allows it to dry thoroughly before use.  To make her paintings she uses a wide variety of scrapers, and tools to spread oil paint onto this smooth surface.  The effects which are realised are of the elements, the weather, storms, rivers, and clouds..
Truly breathtaking!

 www.saatchiart.com > fineartamerica.com/roisinkeown › 



Deutsch: Roisin Keown, Malerin, kommt aus Nordirland. Sie war Studentin in Manchester, und sie malt zuhause und lehrt auch an der Schule.

Im Jahre 2015 unternahmen12 Studentinnen einen Kurs von mehreren Arten der Kunst.  Das war etwas sehr anspruchsvoll  fuer solche Kinder und Jugendliche, da sie nach dem Schultag noch ein Paar Stunden weiter machen mussten.  Dies geschah ueber einen Zeitraum von zehn Wochen, fuer zwei Nachmittagen pro Woche.

Español: En 2015 las jovenes estudiantes de la Academia de Oasis en Salford, Manchester han participado en numerosas actividades artísticas apoyadas por el Consejo de las Artes de Inglaterra.

Français: De jeunes étudiantes de l'Académie d'Oasis à Salford ont travaillées dur pour parvenir à leurs Arts Award Bronze.

Polski:  Kurs został zaprojektowany z dwunastu młodych nastoletnich uczniów w umyśle. Każdego tygodnia będą 4 godziny kursów: wire rzeźby, malarstwa i proste drukowanie,, needlecraft , animowany/akcja rysunek rysunek i, wreszcie, jubilerstwo.

Twelve pupils were selected to take part in this project supported by the Arts Council, whereby five tutors delivered eight hours' tuition over a fortnight each.  The course was ten weeks in duration but the pupils also found that, in order to achieve the Arts Award, they would have to complete their portfolios, and include evidence of their experiences during the course.  

These printmaking sessions took place in the second week of Roisin Keown's teaching.

The pupils were shown a demonstration by Roisin of various printmaking techniques.  Poster paint was used, as this gives a similar effect to printing inks,  but dries a little quicker, so fast action is required.

Paint is rolled into a tray until well spread out. A piece of paper is placed onto the rolled paint and an image can be drawn with a pointed object, such as a pencil.  Pencil is a good choice as the image is unlikely to be duplicated if another image is required to be drawn on the same paper.  The pupils were drawing images of, amongst other things, ordinary objects, based on the exhibition Out of the Ordinary - Works by Colin Rodney Burrows.

Another method the pupils were shown was to draw images in the rolled paint and to lay a piece of paper on the top of the image and to apply even pressure with a roller. This is called monoprinting..

After being shown these methods, the pupils made numerous prints, not always adhering to the methods demonstrated, but also inventing some of their own.  They later used some of these prints as backgrounds for their drawings and entries in their portfolios, which are to be submitted for Arts Award Bronze.

Out of the Ordinary - A course in Painting Techniques for Backgrounds

Painting Techniques for Backgrounds - Tutor: Roisin Keown  - Week 3

Following on from the wire work course, and while the pupils' wire sculptures were on display at Eccles Community Art Gallery and also during the final week of the Out of the Ordinary exhibition at Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Greater Manchester, UK,. the selected year 9 and 10 pupils (ages 13-15) at Oasis Academy, King William Street in Salford, were offered this painting techniques course by Roisin Keown.

Roisin Keown is a recent graduate of Manchester Metropolitan School of Art, who specialises in painting.. She makes gigantic paintings using a technique, which consists of painting stretched calico with an oil-based primer, so that the surface is extremely smooth and allows it to dry thoroughly.  To make her paintings she uses a wide variety of scrapers, and tools to spread oil paint onto this smooth surface.  The effects which are realised are of the elements, the weather, storms, rivers, and clouds..
Trulybreathtaking!

 www.saatchiart.com > Roisinkeownfineartamerica.com › Artists › Roisin Keown › Imagesfineartamerica.com › Artists › Roisin Keown

Deutsch: Roisin Keown, Malerin, kommt aus Nordirland. Sie war Studentin in Manchester, und heutzutage malt und lehrt.

The painting techniques that Roisin showed us used pre-mixed acrylic paints of assorted colours, but thinned down even further with water, so that a fairly runny consistency was achieved.  The pupils were shown how to apply blobs of two or three selected colours onto a piece of paper and move it around in the air, to create their patterns.  This was executed enthusiastically by all the pupils and a wide variety and copious amount of work was done in a very short time.

The above was also printed with blue rings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

1. 

Another technique was to dip one or two pieces of string in the same paint and to place the string between the folded paper (Roisin brought with her an assortment of papers) and then to weigh the paper down and trap the string inside by placing a heavy book on top of the folded piece of paper..  The pieces of string were then pulled out of the paper, leaving a symmetrical pattern on either side of the paper.

                                                                                           

                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

A different technique used watercolour paint on thicker paper.  A variety of materials were placed onto the wet colours to create different effects.  Materials used for this were rice, cling film and salt amongst others. The pupils were shown how to change a drawing of a cat from a naturalistic image to an abstract one, using these paint effects.  Roisin used some printmaking ideas in her final workshop.

Arts Council of England funded Wire Sculpture Project based on the Out of the Ordinary Exhibition

During the months of September to end of November, 2015, an Arts Council funded arts project, using National Lottery monies, was arranged to take place at Oasis Academy Media City in Salford.  The idea was that the pupils would be working towards an Arts Award Bronze qualification, which is roughly equivalent to a G.C.S.E. grade C-D.

The project was intended initially for year 10 pupils, although several year 9 pupils also took part.  The pupils followed a twice weekly course over two weeks in five disciplines: sculpture with wire, painting techniques, drawing cartoon characters, textiles with felt, and jewelry.

Each of the selected pupils, together with their art teacher and community liaison officer, visited the Out of the Ordinary exhibition at Salford Museum and Art Gallery, where they gathered leaflets and postcards and took photographs of the paintings and drawings by Colin Rodney Burrows.  There was also some biogrraphical information in two display cabinets to which the pupils also had access for research.

Wire Workshop with Lorna Fellas

Lorna Fellas is a former Art and Design tutor at the University of Salford.  Lorna is a multi-discipline artist, with an interest in glass, lighting design, ceramics, together with painting and drawing.  She has been in several group exhibitions recently, and delivers workshops in wire sculpture and other disciplines.  

http://www.lornafellas.com/

Following their visit to the Colin Burrows' exhibition at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, the pupils began drawing from ordinary objects which the tutor, Lorna Fellas, had brought into school. The pupils began constructing 2D wire sculptures from their initial drawings, and, in the second week they set to work on 3D sculptures.

                                                                                              

The final pieces were mounted and displayed in the Langworthy Gallery in Salford Museum and Art Gallery, alongside the Out of the Ordinary exhibition and also in Eccles Community Art Gallery,Greater Manchester..

Out of the Ordinary Exhibition - Colin Rodney Burrows' Paintings - Aftermath

The Out of the Ordinary Exhibition was taken down on 2nd November, 2015.

It was the end of an era for our family.  Colin Rodney Burrows (b. 1945) had passed away in April, 2002 and I had wanted to do something in his memory for a very long time.  This exhibition, when it finally happened, fulfilled all that I had hoped for.

Over the span of the exhibition, from 18th July until 1 November, the exhibition had many visitors.  There were over sixty at the preview, mainly friends, family and members of our various art clubs.  The then Director of Salford Museum and Art Gallery had arrived towards the end of the afternoon, very  apologetically, saying that he had been waiting for his car to be returned so that he could travel from Liverpool to attend.

 
 "Gravy Jug",  acrylic paint on cotton duck

"Hot Water Bottle Stopper", acrylic paint on cotton duck

"Sir Anthony Blunt, former Keeper of 

Queen Elizabeth II's Paintings", 

 "Soldiers", water colours on paper

One of Colin's best friends, a former student of the Slade School of Art, Jackson, he used to call him,  arrived on the dot from the South of England, and he was visibly overwhelmed by the wonderful display of Colin's paintings and cartoons, some of which he had never seen before, as the friends had lost touch for several years.  Jackson, who owns the Chapel Gallery and Book Shop in Saxmundham, Suffolk, was kind enough to lend the exhibition two early paintings, which Colin had either sold or given to him.  One was a large, rather abstract self-portrait in their flat at Highgate in London, and we were able to show a black and white photograph of Colin painting this, in a display cabinet.  The other borrowed painting was an early still life of many of the objects which had been important to Colin when he was a student at the Slade.                                                                            

The items consisted of pipes, medicines and other personal items, painted in a naive style.  This still life  is a really beautiful

painting which I am loathe to return, but I have no choice, unfortunately, as Jackson loves it too.  I had never actually seen these paintings before, but I had seen slides of them.

Cover of the Catalogue for the "Out of the Ordinary" Exhibition, July - November, 2015

Something rather peculiar caught my eye one day, as I turned on my personal computer to view some photographs of Colin's works.  There were a couple of black and white photographs which I didn't recognize, but, on closer inspection, I realized one of them was of me, eating a meal at our kitchen table in the mid -1970s, just before our first child was born.  The other photograph was of a girl in our living room.  I then realized it was one of my friends from Secretarial College.  On researching further, I found numerous photographs sent to me by Jackson, that he had taken during several of his visits to our house in Higher Blackley in Manchester.  What was interesting was that some of them showed Colin's set-ups for several of his paintings, for instance, of the Trousers and Shoes.   Colin had dressed the bottom half of a tailor's shop dummy in black tights, a pair of let-down trousers and a pair of shoes from that period and stood it on a wash stand in front of a picture window.  Many months later, when he had nearly finished the painting, our neighbour inquired whether Colin had finished painting the ceiling. 

As a growing family, we had to live around the set-ups of Colin's on-going painting, and I didn't realize it was that unusual.  I just took it for granted.  Visitors and tradespeople were visibly shocked when they stepped into the cramped room, with this strange activity going on by the window.

I am very indebted to Jackson for loaning the exhibition the two paintings and for all the photographs he sent to me prior to the exhibition.

The Exhibitions Team from the Gallery designed and installed the displays.  I was asked my opinion on their suggestions beforehand, and was very happy indeed with the result.  The Artists and Illustrators magazine chose this exhibition as one of the best in the North of England to visit for both September and October, 2015, so we were all very pleased and proud.

The Exhibition wascommended in the "Best Exhibitions" in the North of England for both September and October, 2015 in the "Artists' and Illustrators'" magazine.

  "Washing Up Tubs", acrylic paint on cotton duck

"China Flowers", acrylic paint on cotton duck      

Exhibition "Out of the Ordinary", paintings by Colin Rodney Burrows, in summer, 2015 at Salford Museum and Art Gallery also with works by Lorna Fellas, Sean Caherty,

    Fiona Moate, Jo Carlon and Gerard Highland

"Out of the Ordinary" a new Exhibition of Colin Rodney Burrows' Paintings at Salford Museum and Art Gallery until 1 November, 2015

Colin Rodney Burrows lived and worked in Salford for most of his career as a lecturer at the University of Salford's Art & Design department. Shortly after joining the University Colin had a solo exhibition here at the gallery, so 40 years later it is fitting to have a posthumous exhibition.

The main theme of this exhibition is Colin's fascination with the ordinary and his attempt to elevate it in importance with his paintings and photography, by focusing on various elements such as increasing the scale, using everyday objects as the prime subject of a painting, incorporating household objects into a family portrait and, on occasion, being playful with the titles.

Shown alongside written memories of Colin, there will be artwork by ex-colleagues, former students and his son, Robert. This exhibition celebrates seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary with plenty of opportunities to have a go for all ages.

To complement the exhibition, Colin's widow and son, who are both artists in their own right, will be in the gallery every Tuesday and Friday throughout August and September doing painting and drawing demonstrations, with a chance to have a go at drawing yourself! View the event via our what's on for further information and dates.

'Out of the Ordinary' will be showing in the Langworthy Gallery at Salford Museum & Art Gallery from Saturday 18 July to Sunday 1 November 2015. 

Contact for further information, images, quotes etc:

Kellie Brown, Marketing Officer, 0161 778 0819, kellie.brown@scll.co.uk(link sends e-mail)
Amy Goodwin, Exhibitions Officer, 0161 778 0883, amy.goodwin@scll.co.uk(link sends e-mail)

Notes for the editor:

Salford Community Leisure provides sport, leisure and cultural services in the city. We manage a wide variety of facilities and activities across the eight neighbourhood areas within the city, including sport and leisure facilities, community centres, libraries, community use high schools, museums and the Music and Performing Arts Service.

Salford Museum and Art Gallery presents an exciting programme of permanent displays and changing contemporary exhibitions together with a range of events and activities guaranteed to inspire.

Ordsall Hall - Salford's Grade 1 listed Tudor manor house - was first recorded in 1177. Since then, it has been home to medieval gentry, Tudor nobility, Catholics loyal to the crown, butchers, farmers, an Earl, priests, scout troops, mill workers, cows and several ghosts!

Today, it is an engaging heritage site open to visitors 5 days a week throughout the year. Surrounded by landscaped grounds, it boasts hands on exhibitions, immersive rooms settings and a small cafe.

Art for All

My intention is to fill this space with news, articles and hints and tips for visual artists, who might like to improve techniques or show their work to a wider audience.

Rita

I had the shock of my life when this painting by my late husband, Colin Rodney Burrows, turned up on Ebay of all places.

The title is "Rita, You Were Never Lovelier", painted circa 1971 in acrylics on canvas. 

I saw it last in about 1985, when Colin mentioned that he had swapped it for some spare parts to a dealer in Manchester, UK,  I was not happy.  After Colin's death in 2002, I made inquiries through a third party about buying the painting back, but the dealer was not interested.

The next time I laid eyes on the painting was in September of this year, (2013) when, I have to admit it, a very pleasant gentleman sent me an e-mail, asking me to verify that the painting was by my late husband.  I had just missed the sale on Ebay by a week, if that! 

If anyone else has misplaced an artwork, it might be as well to keep checking on Ebay.  You never know what might turn up there,