Ysgol Llanilar Workshop 2

For the second workshop at Ysgol Llanilar, the class of 23 was split into two groups of a dozen. One group went with Sheena the ecologist, and the other with Marian the artist. Sheena was also joined by mycologist and educationalist Louise Tranter

Sheena talked about ecosystems, the tree of life and then took the group outside, showing different habitats around the pond and the river.

The students with Marian were sketching the shapes and outlines of leaves, and then went outside to take photographs of patterns in nature. These photographs will be used alongside plants in the cyanotype printing process, which uses ferric ammonium citrate/oxalate and potassium ferricyanide and water to develop and fix.

The photographs are desaturated to make grayscale images, and then inverted to make negative images. Then, when printed out on clear transparencies, they add a photographic texture to the cyanotype.

Oriel Gallery

Sheena the ecologist showing students the tree of life

Students examining lichen specimen with hand lenses. They found a woodlouse and a tiny millipede!

Close-up of a tiny millipede on a strand of moss

Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis) growing on a damp patch outside the front of the school. Food plant for Orange-tip Butterfly.

Common Ramping Fumitory (Fumaria muralis) growing in profusion outside the school.

Large-leaved Avens (Geum macrophyllum) in part-shade woodland by Llanilar pond near the school.

Student drawing leaves on black paper and cutting out shapes

The art group went out to take photos of patterns with the tablets. This student took lovely photos of the rippled flower spikes of Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus).

Sheena the ecologist looking at habitat in a wall by the school.

Students being shown riparian (riverside) habitat.

Student taking photo from the willow by the pond

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) in glorious flower.

Mouse tail in student’s hand? Or Primrose flower stem? 🤔

The Banded Snail (Cepaea nemoralis) which only feeds on dead or dying plants.

Reflections

Jake

Sheena brought a dozen different species of plant and lichen samples. This is useful if the weather were bad and we had to stay indoors. It is a lot of work though to collect all the specimens – maybe a handful of specimens might work as well?
The default software on iPads doesn’t allow for inverting photographs! There is a freemium proprietary software available for iOS and Android called Polarr which does have saturation and inversion tools