Lesson video

Hi everyone.

I hope you're having a good day.

My name is Esther.

Some people call me Ms. Esther, and I'm here today to share a lesson with you, called "Shadow Stories, Silhouette, Clay, and Light." It's part of our unit, "Art for Change, Visual Voices." The outcome of the lesson today is that by the end of the lesson, you will be able to build a simple clay figure and use light and shadow to help tell a story using shapes and silhouettes.

We have some keywords for our lesson today.

I'll say them first and then we'll go through what they mean.

We have silhouette, shadow, clay, storytelling.

I'm sure you've heard of some of these keywords before.

Let's go through them one by one.

We have silhouette.

A silhouette is a dark shape or outline of someone or something shown against a lighter background.

A shadow is the dark shape made when an object blocks the light, so think of your shadow on a sunny day.

Clay is a soft material from the ground that can be shaped and left to harden.

In storytelling, we use images, shapes, or figures to share an idea, memory, or message.

We'll come back to these keywords as we go through our lesson today.

We have our lesson cycle here.

Firstly, we'll be drawing silhouettes and creating a scene.

Secondly, we'll build a simple clay figure and last of all, add symbolic shapes and use torch light.

Let's begin with drawing silhouettes and creating a scene.

Can silhouettes tell a story or introduce a character without using any color or detail? I'd like you to look at the image on the screen and have a conversation with someone nearby.

Just looking at the image and thinking, is there a story there for you? Great Conversations.

I wonder what stories you came up with.

We have an amazing artist to think about today.

Kara Walker, Kara Walker's Art tells stories about people who were enslaved and treated unfairly.

She helps us to remember their experiences and think about the importance of freedom and equality.

Her art doesn't use lots of detail and color, but the shapes and shadows still tell very powerful stories, and we've got an example of a silhouette to look at.

By using silhouettes, Kara Walker makes us think about what is shown and what is hidden.

She reminds us that unfair things happened in the past and encourages us to consider how we can make the world fairer today.

We have a check for understanding to do together here it's a true or false.

Kara Walker tells stories using color and decoration to focus attention.

For you, is this true or is it false? Thumbs down.

Have a conversation as a group.

Pause the video and press play when you've talked to someone nearby Did you get the answer false? It is false.

Let's find out why.

She only uses black and white shapes to focus on a story and feeling not decoration.

Silhouette can hide details.

You can't see faces, clothes, or expressions in a silhouette.

This is powerful because in history, people who are enslaved often had their identity and their voices taken away.

Exaggerated shapes, a raised arm, a chain or a figure standing tall can become a symbol, for example, of resistance, unfairness, or strength.

We'll do this check for understanding together.

We have an A, B, or C question.

What can exaggerated shapes and silhouettes represent For you, is it A, symbols of resistance, unfairness, or strength? Is it B, random decorations with no meaning.

Or is it C only happy or funny stories? Pause the video and have a conversation with a partner about whether you think it's A, B, or C.

Restart the video.

When you have your answer.

Fantastic to have those conversations about what things mean to us.

Did you get A, symbols of resistance, unfairness, or strength? A is the right answer.

We have Izzy and Lucas here and they're looking at Kara Walker's silhouette art.

They are inspired to use Kara walker's drawings to help them plan what kind of scene they want to make.

Izzy says, "I like how Kara Walker tells a story just with black shapes.

I might draw people in trees for my scene." Lucas says, "The shapes look like they're moving.

I want to make a scene that shows something happening too." Here's Izzy again.

Izzy says, "I show night by using dark shapes like trees and a moon silhouette.

I'd add people in a big tree to tell the story." Lucas says, "The scene feels calm, but a bit mysterious.

I'd put in a dog and clouds to make it feel alive and exciting." Great ideas for storytelling through the shapes that you use.

To create your silhouette scene inspired by Kara Walker, you will need A3 white card, small pieces of black card, sugar paper, scissors, glue sticks, and pencils.

To create a silhouette scene inspired by Kara Walker.

Keep the drawings of your shapes really simple.

You could draw people, animals, or buildings.

Then cut your shapes out, arrange your shapes.

Remember, you can explore different compositions here.

The shapes aren't stuck down yet, so you can move them about.

When you're happy with your composition, with your scene, glue your shapes onto A3 white card to make a monochrome scene.

Monochrome means it's black and white.

We'll have a chat before we do our first making activity together.

Put these steps in the correct order to create an artwork inspired by Kara Walker's silhouette.

We've got A, cut the shapes from black card B, arrange your shapes onto card.

C, draw people, animals, buildings onto black card.

And D, glue your shapes onto A3.

Is this in the right order? What should we be doing first, second, third and fourth? Rearrange the order of A, B, C, and D.

Work as a small group.

Pause the video and restart when you have your new arrangement.

Okay, we have the answer here.

Did you get B as the first one? Arrange your shapes under card.

C as the second one, draw people, animals, buildings onto black card.

A as the third one, cut the shapes from the black card.

And D as the last one, stays the same.

Glue your shapes onto a three.

Well done for sorting out this tricky question.

We are ready for our first activity task A.

Let's look at our top tips together.

We're going to look closely at Kara Walker's black and white silhouette art.

Then draw and cut shapes from black card can be people, animals, buildings, places, et cetera.

Arrange and glue them onto A3 white card to make a monochrome scene and then step back.

Have a look, what story does your scene tell using only the shape and contrast, can you guess what another person's story is from looking at their shapes? Pause the video and enjoy creating your silhouette scenes.

Restart the video when you've done task A.

Fantastic work.

It's so exciting to see very simple shapes begin to tell a story.

You should have created a silhouette scene inspired by Kara Walker by drawing and cutting out clear black shapes that show a story or scene and thinking about how shapes and composition tell a story without color and detail.

Sometimes the most exciting thing about doing this is all the bits that we don't want, and suddenly they can seem like a proper shape.

A bit like when you stare at the clouds and think, oh, I can see a dinosaur, or I can see a car.

Great, we are now ready for our second learning cycle, which is to build a simple clay figure.

Fantastic.

I love working in clay.

I hope you do too.

How has the artist used posture and additional card to convey a story and emotion? What do you think the clay figure is doing? Do you think that the card signifies anything? Just look at the screen for a few moments.

Feel free to talk as a big group about this.

So, interesting conversations.

We'll start by just looking at the basic clay figure.

You can build a standing clay figure using thick shapes and simple construction without adding any detail.

When you build your clay figure, it's important to make it very solid.

To make your clay figure, you'll need air-dry clay, probably about this much like enough to fit a nice comfortable ball of clay in your hand.

You'll need a clay board or some fabric to work on top of.

A thick cardboard base.

Cocktail sticks.

You'll see why later.

Water pots, wooden tools and cards.

We'll start with a lump of clay to make a base and then we'll roll two thick coils for legs and shape an oval body Push two cocktail sticks into the base in a triangle shape to help support the legs.

Gives you something to put your lumps of clay onto while you squeeze and squash them.

Squeeze the legs on top of the sticks.

Can you see how lumpy the figure is? It's not really thin, it's quite bulky.

Mould a simple body and then small arms or a head, keeping everything strong and steady so the figure stands.

Your figure must stand up and be really firmly attached to that base.

Avoid smoothing or blending.

Just use shape and pressure.

Remember, this is a figure made from outline, not detail.

It does not need hands, eyes, or clothes.

Izzy and Lucas, think about how they can add detail to their figure.

Izzy says, "I would add small clothes, shapes for hands, feet, or attach card elements like clothes or accessories to give it more character." Lucas adds, "I could experiment with different poses by adjusting the arms and legs," both great ideas.

Thanks Izzy.

Thanks Lucas.

We've got a check for understanding here.

Why might you choose to add certain shapes like a flag or a basket to your clay figure? How do these shapes help tell your figure story.

Pause the video and have conversation with a partner about what your figure might be telling us.

Is it going to be based on some of the narratives or stories that artist Kara Walker tells in her artwork? We're thinking like artists now.

What do we want to convey? Pause the video and have a conversation with a partner.

Great conversations.

Here's some ideas that you might have thought about.

I might add a flag to show that my figure is celebrating or standing for something important.

We're going to go through our top tips for task B using clay to build a simple standing figure using structure, not detail.

We are going to roll clay coils to form the body parts, head, arms, legs, and torso.

We're going to have a really nice strong base, big, nice squished bit of clay to attach our figure to.

We're going to make a triangle shape with two cocktail sticks to build our legs onto to help make our figure stand and we're going to keep our figure really simple.

Focus on shape and balance, not details.

Another tip is that you might need a tiny bit of water to help join the clay together if it's dried out a bit.

You need your clay quite soft, but you only need a tiny bit of water.

Pause the video and have great time making your clay figures.

I wonder what postures you'll arrange them into.

Great work, it's interesting to use a soft material after we've just used a material like the card to cut out our silhouette shape.

They're very different materials to work with, so well done for your technical skills.

When you built your simple clay figure, you should have built a stable figure that stands on its own.

Use some clay coils to shape different parts of the body, joined parts securely using the cocktail sticks and a nice strong base and focus on the overall shape and balance rather than adding lots of detail.

Now we're going to continue with task B, which is to cut out shapes to attach to our figures.

These could be large heads, baskets, flags, boats, or other objects.

The clay is going to hold all of your card shapes, which will give us the detail.

This is where we can really start thinking about the narrative.

What narrative do you want to tell? What story do you want to tell by attaching your card shapes.

Pause the video and attach your card shapes to your clay figure.

You might have to use cocktail sticks to hold the card shapes nice and steady when you put them into the clay figure.

Restart the video after you've done task B.

Great work, I hope you enjoyed adding more detail and more thought into your clay figures.

You should have by the end of task B, cut out shapes from card.

Could have been large heads, baskets, flags, boats or other objects, maybe symbolic objects to attach to your figure and to add interest.

We are now going to do our final part of the lesson, adding symbolic shapes and using torch light.

Let's have a think about this.

Could shadows become part of your story too? You can use a torch to create shadows that help tell your story.

To do this, you will need a torch, your clay figure, your background scene or some playing card.

If you didn't do the first step of the background scene, shine a torch across the figure to cast a shadow.

You could try moving the torch closer or further away to change the size of the shadow.

What do you notice when you do this? Have a conversation as a group about what you notice when you use a torch to create shadow? What happens with the figure? What happens with the background scene and then thinking, thinking and making? What do you notice as you do this? Pause the video and talk as a group about what you notice.

I wonder if some of the shadows were scary or mysterious.

We have some thoughts from Izzy and Lucas again.

Izzy says, "When I move the talk closer, the shadow gets really big and stretches across the wall.

It feels more powerful, like the figure is huge and important." Lucas says, "But when the light is further away, the shadow gets smaller and softer.

It feels less scary and more calm.

Like the figure is far away or not as strong." Very interesting thoughts, thank you.

And just have a little check for understanding here.

What happens to the shadow when you move the light closer or further away? Pause the video, have a conversation in a small group and restart the video when you're ready.

Well done for sharing your thoughts and experimenting.

What kind of things did you feel happened? You might have had these type of results.

The shadow gets bigger when the light is closer, the shadow gets smaller when the light is further away.

Shine thought across the figure to cast your shadow.

You could also try angling the light to make the shadow longer or shorter, adding different shapes to your figure and see how the shadows change.

Using shadows to show mood like making them spooky or exciting.

We have a check for understanding a true thumbs up or false thumbs down.

True or false, the shadows will not change when you add new shapes to your clay figure.

What do you think? Is this true or false? Pause the video, talk someone nearby and decide what your answer is.

Did you get that that is false.

It is false.

Adding new shapes changes how the light hits your figure, which changes the shadow it makes.

Even small shapes can create new shadows or change the story your shadow tells.

I wonder what would happen if you put two of your figures together and shined a torch on them? Maybe those two figures would make up a whole new story together.

We're ready for our last activity, task C.

Use light to explore shadow and mood.

Shine a light from different angles to cast shadows and observe how shadows change the feeling or story of your figure.

This is an opportunity to play and make new stories and narratives from the figures you've created.

Have fun, pause the video and restart when you are ready.

Great work everybody thinking like the artist Kara Walker about what shadows, stories, narratives, you can tell using simple shapes.

You should have experimented with lighting to create some interesting shadows.

Notice how shadows can change the mood or meaning of your artwork.

And thought creatively about how light and shadow are drama or storytelling.

The thinking and making.

Well done.

It's time now for our summary of our workshop together.

Shadow stories, silhouettes, clay, and light.

Silhouettes and shadows can tell powerful stories without words.

The artist Kara Walker who creates simple and very detailed cutout shapes to tell narratives of enslaved peoples.

Figures and shapes made from clay use storytelling through pose, exaggeration or absence to express meaning.

We made our own clay figures.

And light and scale help storytelling by changing the mood of a clay narrative.

You can do even more.

You could add a colored light and see how that changes the mood.

Different materials like clay and cards can be combined to create new storytelling artworks.

Very exciting to work with you in our combined materials.

I hope you enjoyed this art lesson.

Well done for all your hard work.

Bye for now.