Peace Painting at Priory Witham Academy

From "Fighting Walls" exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham

 Saturday 10th December was a trip to Nottingham, and a visit to New Art Exchange and the "Fighting Walls" exhibition.
Banksy - style imagery by artists working in Iran and Egypt.

From "Fighting Walls" exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham

From "Fighting Walls" exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham

From "Fighting Walls" exhibition at New Art Exchange, Nottingham

Monday 12th - Tuesday 13th were the first two days of Peace Painting at Priory Witham Academy, with Year 3.

After an initial introduction about Peace Painting, I didn't want to influence their thoughts with any reference images, I spoke about Peace Painting, and invited the children to think about their own ideas about peace.

Some of these were monsters doing dancing, wrestling (Internet meme John Cener), and devilish images. Which are fine, as long as the kids think about how to resolve any conflict that may arise from such ideas.

Existing artwork at Priory Witham Academy

I have reflected on this period, and decided to source images relating to peace and conflict, to ask the children to choose which are peace and which are not peaceful for future workshops. I'd like to see them progress beyond obvious images such as hearts, rainbows and flowers to develop some interesting paintings.

White dove on a banner

 Sketching ideas on paper gave the children a chance to brainstorm their ideas, and then choose specific aspects for their painting.
Good ideas were a peace tree with words relating to peace written on the trunk, such as "agreement", "treaty", "friendship", "love" etc.
Other good ideas were a fairground ferris wheel, which developed into balloons with messages of peace being sent around the world, however, this became Oakley's fairground painting.

Unicef quotes at Priory Witham Academy

On Tuesday evening, after arriving home after a day of Peace Painting, news of the terrible situation in Aleppo was both terrible and confusing as to what was really happening. Thinking about peace, and doodling a sketch of Bana Alabed.

Bana Alabed in Aleppo from Twitter, with quotes 

Friday 16th the best ideas were chosen for a selection of Peace Paintings.

Autumn's Peace Garden

Autumn had a strong idea and drawings for a Peace garden, then spent so long mixing various colours that she took ages to finish her peace garden painting.

Peace Mermaid

Saraa's Peace Tree with hearts and stars

Oakley developed his idea of a ferris wheel and fairground theme to include balloons with words on the theme of peace, however, the balloons are less obvious in his finished painting.

Oakley's Fairground

Esmerelda had the same idea as her friend to start with - both did rainbows with a waterfall underneath, but Esmerelda's developed into a rainbow river with two swans.

Esmerelda's rainbow river with swans

Amy's heart with hands and stars

I have since reflected on the weeks' Peace Painting workshops, and have thought about how I can improve on them for the next sessions, depending on the age group I'll work with and the time we have.

I dreamt that whilst working on this, Magne Furuholmen came along to work with us, which was nice, and would be nice in reality, if he isn't too busy. He did only speak briefly before being engaged in conversation about music with a manager - type guy that was with him.

The Peace Painting project will be launched properly at the Art & Design Conference at The Collection on 10th February 2017.

Wishing you all peace at Christmas and a peaceful New Year!!