M's Bronze Arts Award

WARNING: This is a very wordy post!

At my school, they offer something called Arts award. Basically it is a nation wide award consisting of three awards: bronze, silver and gold. At my school they offer a club and help from teachers however there many out of school clubs that offer the same type of thing. You do need to have the support of some kind of group or club to do the award.

I have just started my bronze award and for this I need to complete the four parts: part A take part, Part B be the audience, Part C Arts inspiration and Part D arts skills share. For each part you need to record some kind of evidence. There are many different ways you can record this information such as a poster, website or blog, PowerPoint, folder or scrapbook, however the judges of the arts award really love  creative scrapbooks. Here's a picture of my scrapbook.

I decorated mine in a creative way but you could simply write on it or come up with something completely different.

Part A: Take part
I was lucky enough to take part in a workshop set up by my school but there are many out of school clubs you could try. If you need some ideas then you can check out  artsawardvoice.com. You also need to record some evidence from your activity. This could be a diary entry, a photos or a video. You also need a description of the activity and what you enjoyed about it. Remember the arts award is all about having fun so enjoy what ever activity you choose to do.

Part B: Be the audience
For this one you need to attend some kind of event such as an art gallery, a play, an arts festival or any other type of event. If you font know about any events in your area then you can check out http://archive.artsawardvoice.com/supporter. Again, you need to have some evidence of what you have done, this could be a ticket, a brochure, photos or something completely different: be creative. You will also need a review, the name of the of event and you need to share your review. You can do this in many different ways such as sharing it on a blog, a display board at a youth centre in a magazine. You could also share it at artsawardvoice.com.

Part C: Arts inspiration
For this you need to research your arts inspiration. This could be an artist, a musician or an actor. You will need to find out about there life, their career and work. You also need to say why you chose them and finally, you need a summary of the main things you found out about them. They must all be in your own words so don't be lazy and copy and paste. I will post my part C for any of you that need some inspiration.

Part D: Arts skills share
Now this may seem daunting but really its not. For this you will need to organise some kind of activity where you are teaching other people an arts skill. This could be n the form of a small session with a thew people on how to do a certain type of arts; it could be a presentation on how to improve your skills in a particular area or it could be an online tutorial but what ever you do, be creative and different. For your record, you will need your plans for the skills share; a picture of film of you doing it and your thoughts on how it went. Again, what ever you decide to do just enjoy it an if it doesn't go to plan it isn't a huge problem as long as you tried your best.

When you have done all this hard work, your adviser will send it of to be assessed and hopefully you will receive your bronze award!
I am sorry this has been such a long post. I hope you have a great time doing your award and if you have any questions comment them and I will replay with an answer.

School Art and Design Project

The finished product

A couple of weeks ago we started an art and design project in school. The idea was to make old clothes look better and really get the feel of design. Me and M decided to work together on a t-shirt she had brought in herself.

We both love to sew so we decided to actually make a skirt from scratch. I brought in my sewing machine and everything worked perfectly. M brought in some orange fabric that we made the skirt out of.

The project took us about five lessons to complete and we also had to complete a booklet about what we made and how we made it. The way we made it was to make the skirt with a pattern I found online. I did all of that and I had some problems at the beginning but when I got it going I did it quite quickly.

M worked on the t-shirt. She chopped the sleeve off it and put a button to sort of gather it. She also gathered it a bit more down the side so it was tighter. The neck of the t-shirt was quite tight so she made it looser and it was a lot better.

I then sewed the fully done t-shirt to the skirt which was easy but it wasn't a completely straight line in the end and it was quite a low waist. Our initial idea was to put plastic bags over the skirt but we decided to use netting instead. M had already cut a hole in it but I thought it looked quite funky like that.

We also made a bag, a bracelet with a plastic bag flower and a necklace with a couple of feathers on the end.

Overall, the project was really fun and a great way to spend time in school. We both loved doing it and thought the end product was brilliant.