INSPIRE: Fitzwilliam Museum

AccessArt has been delighted to have worked with Kate Noble, Miranda Stern, Alison Ayres, Sarah Villis and Holly Morrison, from the Fitzwilliam Museum Learning Team, to inspire primary school teachers to use Museum Collections to support their learners’ learning and creative development.

This series aims to help teachers feel confident in working within museum spaces by engaging with objects and sharing ideas. We hope you can take ideas from this project and transfer them to your own setting. This may be helpful for anyone taking part in Take One Picture.

Below you will find a series of activities used as part of the Inspire 20202 Programme to explore Jacopo del Sellaio’s painting ‘The Story of Cupid and Psyche‘, starting with CPD for teachers run by AccessArt and the Fitzgerald Gallery in Cambridge, followed by a series of resources exploring the impact of the project in schools.

Discover the impact of this project in schools across Cambridge

Discover the impact of this project in schools across Cambridge

The Story of Cupid and Psyche, by Jacopo del Sellaio The Story of Cupid and Psyche, by Jacopo del Sellaio

inspire project goals

This programme aimed to enable the development of confidence, knowledge and creative thinking in teachers and learners with a particular focus on:

  • Confidence in working within museum spaces, responding to museum objects, sharing ideas, and advocating for art and design in school settings.

  • The development of skills and knowledge needed to plan and deliver high-quality cross-curricular experiences and projects inspired by museum objects, using a child-led, enquiry-based learning approach.

  • Employing various creative responses, such as talking, drawing, mark-making, modeling, moving, and writing, to develop imaginative, collaborative, and reflective approaches in response to the object or collection being explored.

Painting flowers at the Fitzwilliam - de Heem

Inspire: Teacher CPD

Talking Points: The Story of Cupid and Psyche by Jacopo del Sellaio

The Story of Cupid and Psyche. Sellaio, Jacopo del (Italian, 1441/2-1493). Egg tempera with gold on panel, height 59cm, width 178.8cm. Florentine School. One of a pair of cassone panels.

Introduction for Participating Teachers and Educators

Looking at Cupid and Psyche by Sellaio in The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Introducing Egg tempera

Studio - Colour - Fitzwilliam Cupid and Psyche

Inspired: Learners

Inspired! Psyche’s Resilience by The Fitzy Peters

Six, ten year old children - called the Fitzy Peters from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, posing in front of a mannequin as part of the Inspire Project with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and AccessArt - photo by their teacher Natalie Bailey

INSPIRED! ‘THE TREE’ AT HAUXTON PRIMARY SCHOOL

A third close up of the finished Tree by The Owl Class at Hauxton Primary led by Pamela Stewart for Inspire

INSPIRED! RE-CREATING CUPID AND PSYCHE AT LINTON HEIGHTS

Close up of the suitors - kirsty webb - inspire

Inspired! Making at Linton Heights Junior School

Year Six Landscape and River Project with mixed media at Linton Heights - Anna Campbell -

AccessArt Resources To Help Explore Artworks…

warm-ups

AccessArt Drawing Prompt Cards

A teachers drawing and her prompt card - Looking at Degas

Ten Minutes, Five Times a Week

ten-minutes-five-times-a-week/

Feeling Through Drawing

making 4

sketchbooks

Sketchbooks in Primary Schools

Using Sketchbooks in Museums and Galleries

Developing Your Sketchbook Approach

Sketching at lunchtimes

Making Sketchbooks at the Fitzwilliam Museum

sketchbooks fitz - SC

storyboards

AccessArt Collection: Resources which Support Literacy

Drawing in charcoal by torchlight

Drawing Storyboards with Children by Paula Briggs

Drawing Storyboards with Children

Illustrating Stories: Creating a Storyboard and First Dummy Book

Final pages of concertina dummy book - Emma Malfroy

Illustrating ‘The Jabberwocky’

Illustrated poem Ellie Somerset

Page to Panel – How to Make Manga

13 - Page to Panel Comic 6 Irine Richards

colour

Colour Wheel for Infants and Juniors

Year 1 colour wheel (detail)

EXPLORING PRIMARY COLOURS and PAINT

Colour Mixing with different water based painting mediums - SC

Exploring Watercolour at the Fitzwilliam Museum

test

How to Make Drawings Inspired by Degas

Liquid drawing inspired by Degas at a workshop for teachers at the Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeLiquid drawing inspired by Degas at a workshop for teachers at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

composition and collage

GATHERING MARKS AND TEARING PAPER

Collaging Gestural Shapes

FROM DRAWING TO COLLAGE TO CASTING

Detail of the finished mural

Relief Printmaking at Ridgefield Primary School

Cutting up images of buildings for collage work

3 Dimensions

AccessArt Collection: Houses, Homes and Architecture

More roofs...

MAKING SCULPTURAL INTERPRETATIONS OF 18TH CENTURY PORTRAITS AT THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

fitz-making-108 PB

Making a Lyre Inspired by the Ancient Greeks

Smoothing the Modroc and creating a smooth texture - portia lyre SC

Exploring Subject Matter

The Figure

AccessArt Collection: Drawing from a Live Model

Life Modelling

Self Portraiture Photography by Anna Linch

Spotting Potential and Nurturing a Young Talent

IMG_0396a

Nature and Landscapes

Layers in the Landscape by Emma Davies

Site Responsive Installation, created at the Wild Networking Event, run by Fermyn Woods Contemporary Art at the cottages in Fermyn Woods; work is in progress. Recycled materials, paint, pencil and pastel. 2013

Wax Resist Autumn Leaves by Rosie James

Wax resist leaves by pupils at Dent School, facilitated by Rosie James

AccessArt Collection: Trees, Forest and Landscape

Wild Imagination - Children in the snow