Lesson video

Hello everybody and welcome back to our third lesson together in this unit, "Installation and Site Specific Art".

My name is Mrs. Barrasso and I'm so happy you've joined us for today's lesson.

We're going to have mega fun.

Let's get started! For today's lesson, you're going to need the following things.

You're going to need your sketchbook and pencil, as always, so we can record our learning together.

And you're going to need some wool.

If you don't have wool, I can show you an activity you can do using scrap material and ribbons and things that you might have around the house.

You'll also need some drawing materials.

Maybe pencil, charcoal or chalk.

And you'll need some scissors, so make sure an adult's around when you're using those.

If you need to, pause now and gather your things and then come back and we'll get started.

So we've started already with our introduction, then we're going to do a warmup.

Then we're going to be talking about yarn bombing.

"What is yarn bombing?" And then you'll be creating a yarn bomb of your own.

And then, as always, we'll finish by recapping what we've done.

So some key words that you're going to need in today's lesson, "Yarn Bombing".

We'll look at it a little bit more in depth, but for now, a brief explanation is that it's a form of street art, covering structures with knitted or crocheted material.

"Reclaim".

This means to recover the use of something, in this case, by making it more beautiful.

And the word, "Monochrome".

This is a photograph or a picture that's been drawn or printed in black and white.

Now, from our definition, we learned that yarn bombing is a form of street art.

So for your warmup, we would like you to go out onto your street, or maybe you could just look out of your window to the street below, and do some drawings.

Do some sketchings of your street.

Look carefully at the buildings, at the architecture, and look carefully at those things that you might not always notice.

The street furniture, the park benches, the post boxes, the bins, things you probably walk past every day and maybe don't spend a lot of time looking at them.

Well, now's your opportunity to go outside and look at them.

Maybe you might find places in your area that you think are kind of a bit drab or grey or grumpy could do with a bit of cheering up, a bit of sprucing up.

Take your drawing materials with you.

It'd be fantastic if you could draw this in monochrome, in black and white! Using just pencils, chalk, charcoal, whatever you have at home.

So you've produced a really fantastic drawing or sketch of your street, of your area.

Somewhere that might need a little bit of sprucing up, a bit of colour added.

So, your turn! Look out of your window or with your adult, go for a walk in your local town or area.

Look carefully at the buildings and street furniture.

Post boxes, lampposts, bollards.

Use pencils, charcoal or chalk to make some monochrome drawing of these.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume when you're done.

See you soon.

"What is yarn bombing?" If you have a look at the photographs on your screen, there are two examples of yarn bombing.

And when we talk about bombing something, we're talking about doing something really fun, really exciting and really special.

Have you ever used a bath bomb before? It's so exciting to drop it in the bath and watch it explode and all the colour come out, isn't it? Or maybe you've been somewhere and they've used confetti bombs, and all the confetti flies down over you! Fun and exciting, and that colour that comes with those things! And that's what yarn bombing is, except it happens on the street and we use yarn to do it.

So if we look at the photograph on the left, it's a much beloved character.

Do you see? Do you know who it is? Absolutely! It looks just like Elmer the Elephant, doesn't it? And it was taken in a village where they were having a special festival and there was loads of yard bombing going on! If you look just at the lamppost behind, you can see there's something else on that lamppost, but we can't quite make out what it is.

If we look at the photograph on the right, this was taken at Saltburn-by-the-Sea on the pier.

And there are hundreds and hundreds, going all the way down the pier! Of different coverings, characters, knitted or crocheted creatures, all the way down! Imagine walking down that pier, how exciting and interesting it would be to look at all of that beautiful artwork all the way down.

I can't wait to make some yarn bombing today and I hope you're really excited too! Here are some more examples of yarn bombing.

Yarn can make the world more beautiful wherever you live.

In your town or city, and here's someone has yarn bombed a pipe! Or if you live by the seaside, I'm not sure what's been yarn bombed there.

I wonder if it might be some big pebbles.

Or in the countryside.

And what have they yarn bombed? Yes, they have yarn bombed a tree.

And all three of those just come to life when the yarn has been bombed there.

So in today's lesson, we are going to be creating our own yarn bomb.

I'm going to show you three different things that you can do to make a yarn bomb in your area.

We're going to be doing some finger knitting, we're going to be using some scrap material and we're going to be creating some pompoms. So, as always, let's go back to those three key ideas that we've used throughout this unit.

The first one is "Space".

What space will you bring to life with your artwork? This is something that you'll need to decide with your adult what space is okay and acceptable for you to do.

Number two, "Message".

What message will your artwork send? Hopefully, it's something really positive and cheerful.

Something to brighten the streets and make people feel good and smile when they see it.

And number three, "Transformation".

How will your artwork transform the space? So, question for you.

"I need to be an expert knitter to create a yarn bomb." Is that true or false, do you think? That is absolutely false.

So if right now, you all sat there thinking, "Oh no, I'm not a great knitter.

I don't find knitting easy." Don't worry.

We're going to look at one really simple way of knitting, we're going to also look at other techniques that you can do to create something beautiful that's not just knitting.

So there are lots of ways of knitting and maybe you already know how to knit.

Or maybe you've got someone in your family who's really, really passionate about knitting, and they'd like to teach you another way of knitting.

Fantastic! That's amazing! Please do that.

If not, here's one simple thing that you can do.

You won't need any knitting needles, all you'll need are your fingers.

Okay, it's called "Finger Knitting".

So let's watch the video on how to do some finger knitting.

For this activity, you will need your wool and you're going to need some scissors for the end, so make sure an adult is around.

And as we are doing finger knitting, you're going to need your fingers.

Lovely, so start by taking the very end of the wool, turn your hand over and tuck the end of the wool onto your thumb and hold it tight, okay? Then taking the wool behind your fingers, you're going to go behind, over, behind, over.

Watch.

Behind, over, behind, over.

It's very important that the first finger you always go over and see the loop on is your big finger.

Then we're going to go around the back.

We're going to go over, behind, over.

Now you can see each finger has one loop on it.

To do a knit, you need two loops on each finger, so we're going to do that same thing again.

So here's my wool now.

I always make sure that my big finger is the first one to have the next loop on it.

There we go.

So I'm going over, behind, over, round, over, behind, over.

So now all of my fingers, each one has two, two, two, two loops.

Then we're going to pull it nice and tight, keep it nice and clean.

And I'm going to take this loop and I'm going to jump it over that loop and off my finger.

So I'm going to bend my finger a little bit to help.

So ready and jump! Oh, keep that nice and tight.

Ready and jump! And jump! And jump! So at this point, my loops have moved up a little bit, so I'm just going to push them down, so it's a bit easier and nothing falls off the end of my fingers.

So push them down like that and keep that nice and tight.

And I'm going to go again! Now, remember, this one always has the loop first, so I'm going to go over.

Do you see? It's now the only one with two loops that's mixed.

If you remember that, it will keep you right.

Behind, over, loop around, over, behind and over.

Now we've got two loops again.

So I'm jumping, I'm jumping, and I'm jumping, and I'm jumping! Then I am pushing it all down to keep it nice and neat, to make sure nothing falls off.

Thought that was going to be tight.

Here we go, keep that nice and tight.

I'm going to clean it up by pulling that, nice! And always starting with his finger.

Over, behind, over, around.

Over, behind, over.

And jumping and jumping.

And jumping and jumping.

Pull it down, pull it down.

And that is finger knitting! Now, if I keep on doing that, it's going to get longer and longer.

So if I show you what I've done so far, we're just at the very early stages.

But that's what I've created so far.

So if I keep on going, it's going to get longer and longer, and I'll have something to use for my yarn bombing.

When I get to the end, I just tie a knot and cut it off and I'm done! Enjoy.

There we go.

It's as simple as that.

Now, if you're watching that thinking it looks a bit complicated, don't worry.

Take your time, watch the video as many times as you need.

Once you get the hang of it and it clicks, it's so much easier.

And then you could just listen to some music and sit and finger knit, and it's a lovely therapeutic to do that.

Enjoy.

So if you don't have any wool at home, don't worry, you can still join in with the yarn bombing.

If you look at the picture on the screen, this is something that I did using just scrap material that I had at home.

An old pair of pyjamas.

I cut them up into strips of fabric.

On the left-hand side, I wrapped them really neatly and tightly, round and round all the way down.

On the right-hand side, I cut smaller strips and I just tied them over and over and over again to make a lovely kind of textured effect.

Now, that's just two things you could do.

You're welcome to play around, see if there's something else that you can come up with.

Not just wrapping, not just tying, can you find anything else.

So if you've got some scrap material, you can still join in.

We're also going to be making some pompoms today.

The hang is part of a yarn bomb.

Now when I was a little girl, I learned to make a pompom using a piece of cardboard and cutting out the middle.

And maybe you've learned that technique as well.

And if that's a technique that you know and you enjoy, please follow that technique.

I'm going to show you a simpler, faster way of making a pompom.

It's not as fluffy and full as the cardboard technique, but it's still effective.

So whichever one works for you is absolutely fine.

Okay, we're going to make a pompom now.

And for that, you're going to need your wool and you're going to need your scissors.

So it's best to make sure an adult's around when you're using these.

There are many ways of making a pompom.

This is just one way.

So again, I'm going to hold my wool back with my thumb and I'm going to wrap it continuously around my four fingers.

Now because I've got much bigger hands than you, I'm only going to wrap it around three fingers.

But you'll probably find that using four fingers is the best way to go.

So I'm going to wrap that up.

That one is getting in the way, isn't it? Wrap, wrap, wrap.

Let me just stretch that out.

Wrap, wrap, wrap.

'Til I've got a nice amount.

There isn't a kind of measurement needed for this.

You just want to have a little feel of a good amount to make a pompom.

And then when you're happy with how much you've got, you're going to trim the end.

Then, very carefully, so you keep it in this little round twist spool.

You're going to take it off your fingers.

Don't want to lose that little hole.

There we go.

Then I'm going to cut a nice long length, because it's also going to be my hanging.

So it doesn't quite matter how long it is, but the one I've cut is about 40 to 50 centimetres.

And then taking my end, maybe my thumb to help guide me, I'm going to just put that through, like so.

I'm going to turn it round like this and I'm going to tie it in a nice knot.

Okay, so all of this long length here will be my hanging.

This is going to be my pompom.

The last thing left to do is to trim it.

So I'm just going to cut that bit off, 'cause that's not going to help us.

So this is why you might need an adult's help.

My knot is here, so I'm going to cut it about halfway.

So I put my scissors through.

There we go.

Make sure they're all trimmed.

Like this.

Kind of fluff it up a little bit.

So there's my pompom.

And if any of it needs a little haircut, some bits are looking a bit big, I'm just going to clip this one here.

Let me put that on the camera.

I'm just going to cut that off, so they're all about the same size, so it looks more effective.

And there we go.

My pompom with hanging, ready to be yarn bombed.

So now we come to the juicy part, the best part of doing yarn bombing.

And that is the "Transformation of a Space".

You've done your finger knitting, you've organised your scrap materials, you've made your pompoms. And now you get to instal your installation somewhere.

And you don't really know how that's going to look until you get there and you start doing it.

And you've got to try and work out exactly what to do with it.

So let me show you mine.

So I wanted to instal my installation on this tree.

You can see here it's winter and there's a bit of snow.

It was grey, it was miserable, it was dull.

And I wanted to bring it to life and bring some colour to this tree.

This is my before picture.

After I installed my installation, this is what it looked like.

Drum roll, please.

Ta-dah! There we go! My installation! I did my finger knitting and I installed it and I wrapped it carefully all the way down the tree.

I also used my scrap fabric to do some wraps and some ties on the lower branches, and then I hung three pompoms in the tree as well.

But yours is probably going to look very different to mine for lots of reasons.

Because of the space that you've chosen, the fabrics, how many pompoms you've made, what techniques you did, but they're all going to bring our space to life.

And even just by that small bit of yarn bombing there, you can already see how much more cheerful and happy it looks.

So, your turn.

"Yarn bomb a space that needs bringing to life.

With an adult, choose a space that you would like to inject with life and colour.

It could be a space inside or outside.

Use your finger knitting technique or textile skills to create something you can use to yarn bomb.

Think about how you will display it.

Will you wrap or tie it? Will you add any extras, such as the pompoms?" Pause the video to complete your task.

Resume when you're finished.

Excellent.

We have done and achieved so much in today's lesson.

Today, we have drawn monochrome drawings of our street, we've learned all about yarn bombing, we've learned different techniques, finger knitting, scrap material wrapping and tying and pompom making, so that we can create our own installation.

A yarn bomb that's going to bring our streets, our area, our house, our bedroom to life.

Whatever space we've decided to inject with colour.

I really hope you've enjoyed this lesson, and that you've had fun that you've learned a new technique, a new skill and you've enjoyed putting your installation together.

So finishing off, as we always do, we're thinking about our sketchbook and some reflections for it.

So how did you create your piece? Which technique or techniques did you use? What did you reclaim? Do you remember that was our keyword from the beginning? Taking something and giving it a new purpose by making it more beautiful.

What did you reclaim? How was the space transformed by your yarn bombing? Did it feel different afterwards? I feel that my tree looked more cheerful and happy.

Because of the bright yellow, it reminded me a little bit of the sunshine.

So I feel that it was just a more cheerful, pleasant thing to look at.

Could you use this technique to create anything else? And most importantly, did you have fun? I hope so.

On my sketchbook page, I've written a little bit about these questions and I've included a before and after picture there so that it can really highlight the difference in how that space was transformed by the yarn bombing.

Well, that's the end of today's lesson.

I really hope you've enjoyed it.

If you've created something beautiful, your installation has transformed a space and we would love to see it, check with your adult if you can share something on Twitter using the hashtag below.

Lots of love and I'll see you next time.

Mwuah!.