In November 2017, a group of primary school teachers explored the exhibition Degas A Passion for Perfection, at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge with the museum’s education officer, Kate Noble, Paula Briggs and Sheila Ceccarelli from AccessArt.

The aim of Fitzwilliam Museum and AccessArt CPD sessions is to empower teachers to use museum collections and inspire creativity in the classroom. Teachers have first-hand experience of looking at great works, with the help of Kate, to inform how to approach looking and interpreting work, combined with a personal exploration and discovery of practical fine art processes with Paula and Sheila from AccessArt. Teachers are encouraged to make creative responses and learn new Art skills, transferable into the classroom setting.

For those who can not participate in Fitzwilliam Museum and AccessArt CPD in the museum, we hope that the resources below will have all that you need to inspire creativity in the classroom, from a distance, inspired by Edgar Degas.

The Fitzwilliam Museum has the most extensive and representative collections of works by Degas in the UK and generously shares images of works with schools to use freely in the classroom.

How to Make Beautiful, Liquid Drawings Inspired by Degas

This resource looks at drawings by the French artist, Edgar Degas (1834-1917), and how to enable the production of beautiful, ‘inky drawings,’ inspired by them in the classroom. This resource was created in collaboration with AccessArt and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Making Monotypes Inspired by Degas

This resource shares how French artist, Edgar Degas (1834-1917), made his ‘inky drawings,’ or monotypes, and how the process of mono-printing can be further explored in the classroom. This resource was created in collaboration with AccessArt and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Making Sculpture Inspired by Degas

This resource explores sculptures by French artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and shows how sculptural processes can be facilitated in a classroom setting. This resource was created in collaboration with AccessArt and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

UK Charity AccessArt created this resource in collaboration with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 

AccessArt has over 850 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.

AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.

We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.

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talking points: Thomas J Price

A collection of sources and imagery to explore the sculptures of Thomas J Price

explore resources…

THOUGHTFUL DRAWING AND MARK MAKING IN THE ARMOURY

USING SKETCHBOOKS, DRAWING AND REFLECTIVE TOOLS IN THE 20TH CENTURY GALLERY

Making Sketchbooks at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

USING DRAWING TO GET CLOSER TO 18TH CENTURY PORTRAITS

MAKING SCULPTURAL INTERPRETATIONS OF 18TH CENTURY PORTRAITS

GATHERING MARKS AND TEARING PAPER TO APPRECIATE PRINTS BY GOYA, TURNER AND CORNELIUS

MONOPRINTING INSPIRED BY GOYA, TURNER AND CORNELIUS

TEACHERS PLAY WITH PLASTICINE TO MAKE PRINTS

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Monoprinting with Oil Pastel and Carbon Copy Paper

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Using Sketchbooks to Inform Larger Work

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Launched! Make, Build, Create: Sculpture Projects for Children!

Published by Black Dog London (April 2016), Make, Build, Create aims to remind us of the importance and pleasure of making. Make, Build, Create is a practical, beautiful and uplifting book which contains 24 fully illustrated sculpture projects for children, plus information on tools and materials that will enable a creative and open-ended exploration of key sculptural ideas.

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Continuous Line Drawings (Squiggle Drawings) of Sticks

Look at this post to see how pupils aged 6 to 10 respond to a continuous line exercise exercise led by Paula Briggs.

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Thoughtful Mark Making

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Drawing Projects for Children by Paula Briggs

Published by Black Dog Publishing London, Drawing Projects for Children is a beautifully illustrated collection of activities that will expand the mark making abilities and imagination of children of all ages, and help fuel their passion for drawing. The book features a collection of drawing exercises and projects taken from the AccessArt website, presenting them in a beautiful and inspirational format.

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part 1: Exploration of Watercolour in the studio

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part 1: Introduction to Watercolour

The resource describes and demonstrates individual watercolour techniques, and then shows examples of these techniques in paintings from the Fitzwilliam Collection.

part 2: Exploration of Watercolour in the studio

After studying paintings from the collection at first hand and identifying how various marks within the paintings may have been made, teachers undertake their own exploration of working with watercolour.

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The Firm

In 1862 Frederick Leach started F. R. Leach & Sons, artist-decorators who worked with the best-known Victorian architects/designers including William Morris, Charles Kempe and George Bodley.

Their expertise led the firm to work on ecclesiastical and civic arts, crafts and decoration as well as domestic architecture and interiors.

If their workshops could talk they would have told of stained glass being designed, painted and fired; stone statues carved; wooden decorations turned; panels chiselled, decorated and gilded; furniture crafted; metal forged; and tiles painted. In fact they could create anything that a well-decorated house, church or college would need.

Pouncing

Wall painting was a popular decoration for churches during the neo-gothic revival in the mid to late Victorian era.

The paint colour was mixed by hand and then often applied straight to the wall or ceiling. The design was often painted freehand or using stencils which included a technique called ‘Pouncing’.

This technique is where the design is drawn out on paper and the outline is pricked all around to produce small holes.

Click on the image above to see How to Make a Tessellated Design.

This is then placed on the wall and dabbed all over with a small bag of fabric filled with powdered graphite or chalk. The powder is forced through the holes so that when the paper is removed it leaves an outline of the pattern on the walls.

Click on the image above to see how teenagers used ‘Pouncing’ to Transfer Designs onto Plaster Tablets

Gilding

Gilding was a popular finish for the ornaments that decorated the ceilings of neo-gothic churches.

These ornaments were made of lead or plaster and were often start that shone down from their great height once gilded in gold.

The first stage to gilding is when gold is pounded until it becomes as thin as tissue paper (25g can be beaten out to cover an area of 3m square).

The surface of the ornament to be gilded is prepared by brushing it all over with a glue called size.

This is left to dry until it reaches a ‘tacky’ state.

The gold sheets are then carefully laid onto the surface of the ornament and the size sticks it to the surface.

The gold is then worked into all the areas of the ornaments using a brush to push it down. There were special brushes made for doing this including one made from squirrel’s fur.

Click on the image below to see how to apply gold leaf to a plaster relief sculpture Gilding and a Touch of Gold

Stained Glass

The neo-gothic revival saw a resurgence in stained glass design for churches and domestic architecture of the day.

One technique used was that of Silver Staining Glass. This is where silver nitrate is painted onto clear glass and fired until the silver paint becomes part of the molecular structure of the glass and produces colours from a pale yellow to a rich orangey-amber.

Follow the link above to see How to Print on Glass.

Motifs or designs were painted onto glass ‘quarries’ or shapes of glass that would be could together to form a leaded window.

For this reason diamonds, squares or other shapes that would tessellate were popular. This type of stained glass window also allowed a lot of light into the building which went well with the decoration of a neo-gothic church where the walls were decorated and deserved to be seen.