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Talking Points: Making Drawings With Your Whole Body – Molly Haslund
A collection of imagery and sources designed to introduce children to the work of Danish artist Molly Haslund.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
The Circle Project by Molly Haslund
Teacher’s Notes
“Molly Haslund ventures out into the city wearing grey: a grey suit, grey socks and grey shoes so that she blends in with the tarmac and the pavement. She carries a huge pair of compasses much taller than herself. She stops somewhere and starts drawing a white circle on the ground. She completes the first circle and then moves the pair of compasses and starts drawing a new circle that overlaps the first one. She draws a third circle and stands in her grey shoes in the middle of the circle for a moment before snapping the pair of compasses together and moving on.” https://www.mollyhaslund.com/circles-2013-2
“… The focus is on the physical action, on the movement of the circles, and the patterns emerging and disappearing again – and of course the effect grows with the number of participants. on the other hand, if you want to draw alone, you can just withdraw a little from the rest. A bit like on the dance floor.” Molly Haslund
Watch the video with the pupils, and look at the images below. Find questions to prompt discussion at the end of this resource.
Circles, Molly Haslund, 2015, New York, Peekskill Project #6, Hudson Valley MOCA, Photo by Joe Orangias
Circles (2013), Molly Haslund, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark, Photo by Matilde Haaning
Circles, Molly Haslund, 2014, Art Week, Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark, Photo by Matilde Haaning
Circles, Molly Haslund, 2014, Art Week, Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark, Photo by Matilde Haaning
Questions to Ask Children
How would you feel if you came across these circles in your street or playground, without knowing who had made them or why? What would you do? Would they change the way you move?
How do you think Molly, the artist, chooses where to make her circles?
How could you make similar circles in your playground, using chalk tied to sticks?
How would the circles you make join up with the circles your friends make?
What would other pupils in your school think if they discovered your circles? What do you think they would do?
What other shapes could you make with your body in the playground? Would you need tools?
If music played would you make different shapes? How would the shapes be different?
This Talking Points Is Used In…
Pathway: Spirals
This is featured in the ‘Spirals’ pathway
using sketchbooks to make visual notes
Show me what you see
See This Resource Used In Schools…
Talking Points: Artists as Collectors & Explorers
A collection of imagery and sources designed to explore the idea that artists can be collectors and explorers.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
Introduction
The following videos and weblinks explore the idea that artists can be collectors and explorers.
By approaching the world with curiosity and openness, we can re-see the things around us and use them to inform and inspire our creative processes.
The following artists all venture out into the world, exploring familiar and new places and finding inspiration in the things around them. These artists then bring the things they “collect” back to their studios to make work.
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is a British Sculptor who has become know for making art from things he finds in the landscape. Sometimes he creates the artwork in the landscape itself (he calls this “land art”), but in this video he shares how he takes ice and rocks from the landscape and lets it make a “drawing” as it thaws in his studio.
The video is suitable for children, however depending upon the abilities/experience of the children in your class you may wish to watch the video yourself, then turn the sound down as you play it to the children, using your own voice to help share what the artist is doing.
TateShots: Andy Goldsworthy, Studio Visit
Questions to Ask Children
Andy Goldsworthy says: “Art has this amazing ability to show you what’s there.”
What do you think he means by that?
Do you like the artwork in the video more because you can see how it has been made?
How much control does Andy have over the artwork he makes? Does he want more control?
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. He was a great collector.
His images are copyright protected but the Royal Academy has created some excellent videos about his work, and there are images on the site too.
Take a look at the videos here.
Hassan Hajjaj
Hassan Hajjaj was born in 1961 in Larache, Morocco, and now lives and works in London, UK. He is inspired by Moroccan culture and artefacts and his work crosses many disciplines including photography and design.
www.instagram.com/hassanhajjaj_larache/
Avantarte
Questions to Ask Children
What kinds of things catch Hassan’s eye when he is looking around his environment?
Do you think there is a clear distinction between “art” and “life” in Hassan’s mind?
Lorna Crane the Brush Maker
Lorna Crane is an abstract painter whose work is inspired by the Australian landscape. She makes her own artist’s brushes using diverse natural and man-made materials, many of them found at Pambula river mouth on the NSW far south coast.
Questions to Ask Children
How do you think Lorna decides which things to pick up and turn into brushes?
Do you think two brushes are ever the same?
Which part do you think Lorna likes best: the collecting, the making brushes, or the painting with her brushes?
What could you make brushes out of? What marks would they make? What challenges might you face?
Alice Fox
Alice Fox took on an old allotment and on the allotment were a number of sheds. Alice spends time discovering the past through the things she finds and creates small, carefully crafted artworks, inspired by what she finds and natural materials.
You can see more of Alice’s work here.
A film about artist Alice Fox who works with found, gathered and grown materials all within the boundaries of her allotment.
Questions to Ask Children
Can you think of some words to describe the small pieces of art that Alice makes? What do they make you think of?
When she is making her work, how do you think Alice feels?
Where do you think she gets her ideas about how to transform materials from?
Do you think she works quickly or slowly?
Nicole White
Nicola is a “Mudlarker” and artist, who uses the glass she finds on the beach to make her artworks.
Nicola White, Mudlarker and Artist
Trash Art Project
Trash Art Project collected from Brokenstraw Creek, USA
Questions to Ask Children
Do you think these students knew what they would make before they found the materials?
How do you think they decided what to make?
Do you think the project went right from the start, or can you imagine they had to keep rethinking challenges along the way?
What challenges do you think they faced?
This Talking Points Is Used In…
Pathway: Explore and Draw
This is featured in the ‘Explore and Draw’ pathway
Pathway: using natural materials to make images
This is featured in the ‘Using Natural Materials to Make Images’ pathway
using sketchbooks to make visual notes
Show me what you see
Talking Points: Paul Klee
A collection of imagery and sources designed to encourage children to explore the work of Paul Klee.
Please note that this page contains links to external websites and has videos from external websites embedded. At the time of creating, AccessArt checked all links to ensure content is appropriate for teachers to access. However external websites and videos are updated and that is beyond our control.
Please let us know if you find a 404 link, or if you feel content is no longer appropriate.
We strongly recommend as part of good teaching practice that teachers watch all videos and visit all websites before sharing with a class. On occasion there may be elements of a video you would prefer not to show to your class and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure content is appropriate. Many thanks.
*If you are having issues viewing videos it may be due to your schools firewall or your cookie selection. Please check with your IT department.*
This resource is free to access and is not a part of AccessArt membership.
Watercolour Paintings by Paul Klee
Take a close look at these paintings. Use the questions to talk about them as a class.
Klee was born in 1879 in Switzerland. When he was 35 he visited Tunisia in Africa, where his experience of the light and colours of the landscapes and architecture helped awaken his interest in colour.
He became less interested in painting exactly what he saw and in fact from 1915 onwards he never again worked from a model. Instead, he became interested in painting the colours around him, letting them detach themselves from the objects the colours were on. In this way his worked moved towards Abstraction.
He became interested in creating fantastical worlds, full of symbols, shapes, colour and line.
He took his inspiration from the world around him, and his imaginative response to the world, and also from poetry, music and literature.
Sometimes his work was serious and meditative, other times it was full of humour. He also loved the sounds of words and phrases and the titles of works were often very important to Klee.
Battle scene from the funny and fantastic opera “The Seafarers” (1923). Painting by Paul Klee. Original from the Kunstmuseum Basel Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
What do you think is happening?
How does the title change the painting?
Why do you think Klee painted in blocks of colour?
How does the painting make you feel?
The Firmament Above the Temple (1922) by Paul Klee. Original from The MET Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
Can you see the landscape and the sky? How has Klee painted them?
How does the painting make you feel?
Temple Gardens (1920) by Paul Klee. Original from The MET Museum
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
How does this landscape make you feel?
If you were there, in the painting, how would you feel?
Tell me about the colours. Why do you think Klee choose these colours?
Persian Nightingales (1917) by Paul Klee. Original portrait painting from The Art Institute of Chicago.
Questions to Ask Children
Describe what you see.
What materials do you think Klee used?
Can you see two letters?
The R and the N stand for Rose and Nightingale. Can you spot the rose and the Nightingales in the painting?
How does this painting make you feel?
How do you think the painter felt when he painted it?
This is an animation of one of Klee’s paintings.
Questions to Ask Children
How do you feel watching the animation?
What kind of world has Klee/the animator created?
If you could animate one of the paintings above, how would you bring it to life? What would you make it do?
In this video Klee’s paintings are shown alongside music.
Questions to Ask Children
How does the music change the way you look at the paintings?
Do you think Klee would have liked this video (remember Klee made his paintings at a time when there were very few films).
This Talking Points Is Used In…
Pathway: Exploring Watercolour
Featured in the ‘Exploring Watercolour’ pathway
using sketchbooks to make visual notes
Show me what you see