International Art

Flower designs inspired by Polish folk art

Last half term I did a couple of mornings at Pennine Way Primary School as part of their International week. Working with each class in Key Stage 1 we looked at patterns from their chosen country (each class chose a different country) and then used fabric pens and collage to each make an individual fabric patch.

We used fabric pens and collage

Ceramic tile designs from Portugal inspired another class

Each class also worked on a large group collage to do with their chosen country and I then took away all the pieces and sewed the individual patches around the group collages to create a hanging for each class. Because I've had so much other work on I've only just finished sewing all the bits together and I'm looking forward to taking them to the school this week. I've backed them all with a nice bright red cotton and put ribbon hanging loops in. I hope they'll be pleased!

The flag of the USA surrounded by individual designs

Some of the individual patches 

Working with nursery we looked at the USA and they did a group collage of the flag and then individual patches based on animals. We looked at native American art for inspiration.

Uluru was chosen for the group collage for Australia 

Animals of Australia 

This patch uses the colours of the Aboriginal flag 

A very happy kangaroo

A scary number of spiders!

Another class looked at Australia and so we looked at aboriginal dot paintings and most of the patches were based around the animals in Australia. The designs from this group were full of character and they were really imaginative.

This class collaged a map of Portugal

They based their designs on ceramic tiles

They were really good at using colour

They came up with some beautiful patterns

For the class who had chosen Portugal I found some images of beautiful patterned tiles. The children did a fantastic job of both copying some of the patterns and creating their own on their patches.

The Polish eagle formed the centre of this classes piece

Their individual patches were based on floral motifs

Floral designs

Lots of floral designs inspired by Polish folk art

One of the other countries we looked at was Poland. Again we looked at traditional folk art and noticed that there were a lot of floral motifs so the children made their patches very floral. I was very impressed with some of the lovely designs they came up with.

The Eiffel Tower was chosen to represent France

The patches were all based on France's national flower, the lily

Another lily design

France had also been chosen by one of the classes and the teacher had asked each of her students to draw a lily, the national flower of France, on their patches.

I really enjoyed working with the students and teachers at Pennine Way. It was interesting seeing how differently people approached things and how this affected the finished pieces. I learnt a lot from this project and hope that the school got a lot out of it too.