Cumberland House Natural History Museum Bookmaking workshop

All the lovely stories and all the lovely drawings housed in their books. They look wonderful and are now in the post on their way to the museum.

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Beacon View Primary School, Bookmaking workshop

The very last workshop with Beacon View Primary School and Cumberland House Natural History Museum.  We've spent so much time with all the birds and butterflies and now it was time to put the final finishes to the stories that have been written in response to all the collections.  The children made different books and wrote out their stories adding a bit of extra colour here and there.  The final day for the reopening of the museum is the 3 July 2013.  All those involved, including the mayor of Portsmouth will be there to watch the unveiling of their work and let the public in.

Cumberland House Natural History Museum, installing the artwork

Day two of installation and its looking really really great. the musuem is very beautiful and is all spick and span. Nick, head man in all sort of departments has a very sensitive professional touch in areas of architecture, lighting, interior design to name but a few of his strengths. As a result the work made at the various workshops is being shown in a context that both enhances and compliments the existing structure of the building.  Tracy Teasdale, learning officer, with Portsmouth Musuems has been spending the day armed with a glue gun, sticking butterflies (paper ones) to the conservatory windows while i've placed the birds their final display cases.  The official opening is on Wednesday 2 July 2013 at 1.30pm.  All the children from Beacon View Academy, teachers and the mayor will be there.

Can't wait to see their faces!

Cumberland House Natural History Museum 'Flights of Fancy' workshop with Craneswater Junior School 25.4.13

Today was the last day of the children's workshops for the 'Fights of Fancy' Project which will be on show at The Cumberland House Natural History Museum.  My visit was to Craneswater Junior School in Southsea with year 3 children.  The workshop again focused on the museum specimens. My aim today was to get all the children drawing the specimens, concentrating on shape and scale.  They were given only pencils and charcoal. Once they'd loosened up, there were some really beautiful drawings produced.  The most difficult thing was getting them to produce large drawings. I find there's always a reluctance with this and they always seem a lot more comfortable working to a smaller scale in the middle of a sheet of paper. 

The afternoon was spent translating the drawings into silhouettes and cutting them out of card using a limited palette of two colours. The surfaces of the birds were then decorated before being hung together in a flock.

Everyone worked hard and said that the day went really fast. We're now in the process of preparing all the work for installation at the museum, ready for the grand opening in a few weeks.

drawing the birds 

studying the large cormarant

drawing a very large seagull specimen

this little boy said he couldn't draw

charcoal drawing of seagull

owl sketch

another fantastic seagull

silhouette hanging birds

cutting patterns for the surface of the birds

wings and surface decoration

finished silhouette

finished bird

Cumberland House Museum Flights of Fancy at Paulsgrove School, Day 3

Day 3 with Miss Campbell's class at Paulsgrove Primary School.  Everyone worked their socks off making bird sculptures.  We spent the entire day with only two short breaks, construcing paper sculptures based on original bird specimens from Cumberland House Natural History Museum.  It was a difficult but rewarding experience for the children as they had to consider many aspects such as scale, proportion, colour and texture as well as the technical aspects of making sure each bird was compact as well as strong enough to hold its shape as well as support itself and of course actually resembling their chosen bird.  There was lots of help again from the wonderful teachers and Tracy Teasdale who spent the whole day with us helping, inspiring and keeping me company.

making the bodies

Tracy Teasdale checking the bird bodies out

Adding legs

me drying the bodies after they'd been painted.

Attaching the feathers to the wings

All finished!