Show your working...

How often do adults show their working? i.e. the process which leads to a complete product/ successful project etc.

Increasingly creative practitioners are asked to reflect on their processes which lead to products (without necessarily showing it, although documentation often happens for other reasons) but in primary schools children are regularly asked to show their work. Why?... its scary!

I suppose that is the aspect which I find most engaging about this whole blogging thing- I'm creating time outside of 'drive time' to explore my own 'workings' and challenging myself to go further in my thinking and delivering; but I also have the opportunity to understand how other people reach their 'products' through their own blogs which is fascinating. This morning I have been playing with photoshop - just because I can!.. its fun to work out how to do knew things and its also a way to enjoy creating new pictures out of old favourites...

original photo from Vienna...



I'll be honest - I quite like this photo and have no problem sharing it. I'm no photographer so any photos I like I can be proud of!...

so now I play with the image...



Not incredibly original - mixture of Van Gogh style colours and Warhol style 'posterizing' but still fun to explore. I've wanted to play like this ever since I saw the 'Refuge' exhibition by Yasmin Yaqub at Mid Pennine Gallery a few years ago. - it was a truly inspiring exhibition (still inspiring me five years later) which led to a great education project working with Daksha Patel and Lord Street Primary School but its only now I have got round to playing in my own time!

Another one?...



This time I've explored more 'realistic' colours but still using a fairly limited palette - not unlike the poster paints a child might use. You may notice that there's more detail this time though - its a smidge more finished. I've zoomed in to fill in smaller elements of colour as well as taking the time to separate the person and give him his own colour so he doesn't get lost in the background. As I started to consider sharing these images on my blog I couldn't help but try and make it a little bit better!

So - I guess that's why we endlessly encourage children to show their work. If its ok to challenge children in this way though - surely we should at least recognise that its not always comfortable to share our work, make sure that there is a genuine reason and a safe place for doing so - and maybe challenge ourselves in the same way from time to time! Perhaps adult work should be alongside children's as we look along the walls full of displayed work in schools?!

PS... a final image from the 'Inspired by Refuge' project which I referred to earlier. Where digital media merged back into 'real/tangible?' visual art using collage of photographs, newspaper cuttings, charcoal and pencil drawings...