Creative Opportunities for All; the MediaArts Creative Launch

Students Launch Rave FM, guided by Mr Muzio.

Crafty kids develop their making skills.

There was great excitement from young and old alike at lunchtime on the 4th December 2008. The MediaArts Faculty and the Music department showcased a number of their extra-curricular clubs; currently available to all students at The Ravensbourne School. Mr Muzio skillfully demonstrated our new radio station equipment to budding presenters whilst Mr. Berry and special guests treated us to a DJ master-class. Mr. Morrell and his BTEC students were busy showing off their new toy; a camera boom which gives a new dimension to film-making by making dramatic ariel and tracking shots possible. Mr. Murrells and Miss Barclay proudly projected the results of their Cineclub endeavours with a professional piece of student film-making. Miss. Underhill, Miss. Scruton and Ms. Wright left technology behind and mesmerised students with their craft skills.

It really was excellent to see our Year 11 and Post-16 students freely give up their time to assist our Ks3 students throughout their lunchtime. They were a credit to themselves and a great asset to the school. The event was about getting Ks3 students involved in all of the creative clubs we offer everyday of the school week. We sincerely hope that any undecided students have now take the opportunity to follow one or more of the exciting clubs available at TRS.

John Attwood
Assistant Head of Specialism

Clubs available at The Ravensbourne School include;

Key Skills Club, Life Drawing Class, Global Street Art Club, Gifted & Talented Art Club, Music Technology, Samba Drumming, String Group, Dance Band, and Cine Club.

Monkey: Journey to the West

Students at the O2 before the workshop

Make-up and prosthetics demostration

Year 12 BTEC Art and Design and Year 10 Music students benefitted from a fantastic trip to the O2 to see groundbreaking new opera Monkey: Journey to the West. They also took part in a workshop designed to give them an insight into interdisciplinary practice within the visual and creative arts.

Monkey: Journey to the West brings opera right into the 21st century with the combination of music, martial arts, stunning costume and make-up design and fabulous animation, choreographed to fit with live action, created by Jamie Hewlett, the mastermind behind animated musicians Gorillaz.

During the workshop students were allowed backstage to see the show’s actors being made up. They also got to take part in a singing workshop, where the instructor had them rapping in Mandarin in under fifteen minutes. Following the workshop students viewed a matinee performance of the opera.

Here are a few of the student’s observations about the things they saw and learnt;

It was amazing to see the prosthetics being stuck on. They are attached with glue that stays tacky; the amount of glue used depends on the amount the person sweats. It takes 30 minutes for the make-up artist to apply the make-up; prosthetics take longer, sometimes over an hour. Every character in the show has their own make-up artist. The prosthetics are made in the same way a dentist would make a mould of your mouth. Often the face is airbrushed to make the prosthetics look more real.

Sarah Moss, Year 12


The way the costumes moved with the performers was great. I especially liked the costumes of the gymnasts, especially the shrimp. It wasn’t complicated and allowed the actress to move but I really liked the legs that were attached to her back.

Hazel Whiles, Year 12

Art in Bromley; an environmental sculpture project.

As part of the Art & Design work related learning initiative, BTEC Art students were invited to create proposals for environmental sculptures in and around the Bromley area. The brief was set by Bromley Borough Council and was open to local artists and art students. The brief involved the use of recycled or natural materials to create sculptures promoting environmental issues.

TRS students created a range of ideas including, ‘THINK’ by Philippa Williams Y12, pictured below.

Year 11 Trip to Kew Gardens

Year 11 students after scaling the tree-top walkway

On the 5th of November Year 11 students studying BTEC and G.C.S.E Art and Design visited Kew Gardens to collect visual resources for their project work around the theme of Barriers.

The day was a great success and a lot of excellent work was produced. As part of the trip we visited the Palm House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory. They were also given the opportunity to test their head for heights when scaling the new Xstrata tree top walkway.

The students conducted themselves really well and were a credit to the whole school.

Year 12 Students Visit Ravensbourne College of Art and Design

Students involved in a critique of their life-drawing.


Students receiving advice on interview skills

On the 24th of October AS and Year 12 BTEC students visited Ravensbourne College of Art to talk with student ambassadors, learn about preparing their art college portfolio, find out how to be a successful interviewee and take a course of life drawing. The students were really actively involved in the day and their Life Drawing was praised by Foundation Course tutors at the college.

'The day at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design was very informative because we learnt how to put together a professional looking portfolio. The advice was good and the talk about interviews was really useful'

Bethany Rooks

Year 12

BTEC Trip to East London Printmakers

A student working on an etching plate with Nick from East London Printmakers

On October 17th , Year 13 BTEC had a daytrip to Hackney to visit an art studio called East London Printmaker’s. Miss Underhill introduced us to Nick Morley who works as studio coordinator, he also works independently as a printer and produces his own work in different printing techniques including etching, lino-cut printing and screen printing.

Nick gave us a tour of the working areas and explained health and safety in the studio and how to use the machinery correctly. Miss Underhill explained etching and how absorbing it can be. Nick then gave an etching demonstration with one of his etching plates. He explained to us how to prepare the plate and how acid must be applied for the engravings to become useable at the printing stage, he spread thick printing ink over each area and buffed the plate in circular motions to make sure the ink stayed in the grooves. After this process Nick showed us the printing process which resulted in the plate being manually wheeled through a press which printed and embossed the paper.

Throughout the tour of East London Printmaker’s Nick answered questions that we had for him about himself and the Printers studio, we found out about him not being interested in printing until he studied for a Foundation Degree at university which shaped his future interests. We also found out about ho much he sells his prints for and why. He gave us an insight to editions, he told us that an edition print must only be printed at the agreed amount of the artist, for example 10 prints, and only 10 prints must me made and sold. After making the print, the screen or plate must be destroyed as no other copies of the prints can be made for copyright and legal rights. We asked him how many prints he usually does in his editions and he explained that he usually makes 20-35 prints in one edition and only ever sells them for less than £50, this is because he believes that if someone who will buy a print which is cheaper than £50 because a handmade print requires craftsmanship, which is more valuable than the mass produced prints which are sold in nation wide stores.


Overall the trip to ELP really gave the Year 13 BTEC group a detailed insight to printing in general and basic information on selling or buying prints. We had a good day and got to learn lots of things which supported our BTEC unit in Surface Pattern. It allowed us to expand our knowledge beyond the facilities available at school.
East London Printmakers hold regular open galleries where prints are for sale and also has open days and memberships for artists who want to learn to print or continue printing for freelancing or personal leisure.

By Charlie Watts

Year 13

Student's work photographed with Reverend Michael Insley who invited students to take part.

Post 16 students have exhibited their work in the local community at St Luke's Church Bromley. The work is very diverse and accomplished and made a bright, interesting display. Whilst the theme of Icons made reference to the exhibition's setting.

In the Scrum With Style.

The Ravensbourne School's rugby team is looking fantastically smart in it's new MediaArts sponsored rugby strip as seen above modelled by one of our team.

Spectacular Eco-Systems

Year 6 pupils from St Marks Primary School have recently been welcomed into the MediaArts Department at the Ravensbourne School. They enjoyed working on a cross-curricular project planned by Geography and Art to produce a banner based on a rainforest eco-system. The children worked in oil pastel and collage and each produced a drawing of a leaf and rainforest animal. The results can now be seen brightening up a previously dark wall in Bromley Library.

To see more of our community projects please follow the link below;

http://ravensbourne.e4education.co.uk/page_viewer.asp?page=Wider+Community&pid=45

Media Arts and Languages - Amazing Architecture

Four lucky Year 7 students were chosen to take part in an exciting MediaArts and Languages project. Joshua Read, Maxine Almond, Tabitha Wade-Scriven and Michael Adams joined PGCE Art Teacher Alicia Fairburn in the challenge to make some decorative art work for the Languages corridor. The pieces had to represent a famous landmark from France. The students choose to work on two designs. The first designs were based on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Disneyland Paris, the second design is based on Gustave Eiffel's famous Eiffel Tower. The work
is now proudly on display for all to see. Well done!

To see more of our community projects please follow the link below;
http://ravensbourne.e4education.co.uk/page_viewer.asp?page=Wider+Community&pid=45

Applied Art G.C.S.E. Exam

jewellery by Mandy Mortlock

The staff in the MediaArts Faculty would like to take the opportunity to thank all the students who have just sat their end-of-year Applied Art G.C.S.E. exam. They were a credit to the faculty and their work was a testament to two years of hard work from the students and their teacher Miss Underhill.

Well done guys!

To see their efforts please visit the Art Gallery page on our school website or visit their online Flickr Gallery by following the links below;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravensbournemediaarts/sets/72157604771552642/

Raglan Primary School Community Project

Pupils from Raglan Primary School were given the chance to plan and organise their own Mayday school fate. Students have been creating their own products, and learning about media production as part of a MediaArts Community Project.

The Primary Links Project which is lead by Community Coordinator Lynsey Anderton brings together a wide range of people and disciplines to make a truly cross-curricular experience.

The project has taken place through two sessions based at Raglan Primary School and two sessions based at The Ravensbourne School. Business studies teacher Mr Connolly visited Raglan School to talk about setting up a business and explore business ideas with Year 4 pupils, whilst MediaArts Technician Sarah Beven led a portrait drawing workshop. Miss Brayley, Mrs Harrington and the Year 4 students from Raglan School then visited The Ravensbourne School to learn how to use our new screen-printing facilities, to transfer their portraits to canvas bags (which they will sell at their school fete).

The project has been filmed by Media Artist Nick Goulds assisted by his hardworking crew of Year 4 Raglan pupils, who will also return to the school to assist him in editing the film.

To see more of the community work that takes place at The Ravensbourne School please follow this link;

http://ravensbourne.e4education.co.uk/page_viewer.asp?page=Wider+Community&pid=45

Global Street Art Club

‘Global Street Art Club’ has been founded by Art and Design Teachers Ms Wright and Miss Scruton. It is an extension of a recent Key Stage 3 Scheme-of-Work entitled Body Decoration and Street Art in which Students are encouraged to study diverse cultural visuals and traditions from Maori Art to Urban Street Art.

A trip to the current street art exhibition at Tate Modern is planned for the Summer Term.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/streetart/default.shtm

The club has been immensely popular and it is something pupils love to do, don’t just take our word for it:

“It is a good way to keep us out of trouble and lunch and it stops us from putting graffiti around the school! We can learn how to make decorative lettering and use different art materials.”

Harry Franklin, Year 8

“We’ve learnt how to do graffiti style lettering and relief work.”

Joshua Silk, Year 8

“We get to choose what we do and we are learning how to make things”

Taylor Jezzard, Year 8

Btec Students Visit Photofusion

Btec National Diploma Students in Art and Design visited Photofusion in Brixton as part of a unit of work which teaches them about Darkroom Techniques.

Photofusion is an open access darkroom and gallery space in London. As part of their trip Students got to see the Pavilion Commissions exhibition which displayed photographs from a prestigious fine art photography award. They also took part in tours of the darkroom and digital suite and a professional lighting workshop headed by a freelance photographer.

“At Photofusion we learnt about all the different processes that occur in a darkroom, such as colour and black and white processing. We saw how a professional darkroom worked and the different equipment that is used. We learnt about the business of Freelance Photography and setting up a studio.”

Isha Thomas, Year 12

“The layout of the exhibition was good and the images were intriguing. They weren’t of models, like magazine photography. They showed a different aspect of photography. Each image in the gallery was different and each photographer had a very different set of images. The exhibition was interesting and diverse.”

Hannah Rickards, Year 12

Students Design a Fantastic New Poster

Year 12 BTEC National Diploma Students have designed and photographed their own take on a poster issued by the School Libraries Association. The poster was commissioned by Librarian Mrs Roberts, she was very pleased with the results and said that “The bright colours they have used and the way the student’s characters show through makes for a truly excellent poster.” The final layout, made by Charlie Watts has been printed at A1 size, framed and displayed around the school. An additional leaflet designed by Sacha Irlam-Wills is now being used to advertise the library’s opening hours and services.

Gifted and Talented Art Club

Gifted and Talented Art Club runs every Thursday night and is aimed at Key Stage Three students with a flair for Art and Design. Here are the opinions of some of the attendees.

I come to Gifted and Talented Art Club because I love art and I want to do more art and become good at it.

We do lots of stuff at the club. At the moment we are making maps. 1 piece of a big map is given to every student to paint and sew into. When they are finished they will be put together to make one big map.

I enjoy the way that everyone in Gifted and Talented Art Club are friends. Everybody helps each other and gives each other ideas.

Basak Kaynak, 7LO

I come to Gifted and Talented Art Club because I enjoy art and think it’s fun. At the moment we are making a big map. In the past we have done origami, printmaking and have entered a poster design competition where we had to design a poster for Bromley Council’s Environment day encouraging people to walk to school.

I enjoy getting to do more art and doing the projects that Mr Johnson and Miss Underhill set for us. I think Art Club is great.

Jenny Jones, 7LO

To see more images of gifted and talented art club please follow this link to our Flickr Gifted and Talented Gallery.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravensbournemediaarts/sets/72157605035714359/

The Somerville Adventure Playground Mural

Our mural will replace exisiting artwork at the playground

by Lara Page

Year 12 BTEC National Diploma in Art and Design are creating a mural for The Somerville Adventure Playground in New Cross. We individually designed our own ideas for the mural and then came together as a group to combine our ideas in order to design the final mural.

We have worked well as a team and even visited the playground to ask the children what they would like on their mural. We were shown round by Reece and Connor who told us about the games the children played, showed us the football pitch where Millwall come to give football lessons.

The Somerville Adventure Playground is a registered charity and was founded thirty years ago. It caters for children from five to fifteen. A lot of the current playground artwork dates back to the 80’s and the art work on the football pitch is mostly graffiti based. It will be nice to make a mural that is big and bright and appeals to the younger children who spend more of their time in the lower playground near the hut.

We are currently having meetings and developing the work. We hope that the mural will be finished by the end of June.