Guest post by project artist Pip Lewis
Adar y Dderw – birds of the Oak
Pip continued working with Group A, creating layered artworks made with acetate . The process involves overlaying drawing and collage, and adding text, and will be exhibited in the Stori Wyllt Gathering in Stiwdio 3 in Aberteifi on Monday 29th June.
Prior to the workshop Pip selected and printed A3 photos of different birds who live and forage in oak trees. The students drew lots last week to find out which bird they would be focusing on in their final artwork.
A3 birds and stencilled names
In the first part of the morning the students used a letter stencil to write their own name and the name of their bird in english and welsh. The aim was to practice using a letter stencil, and design of the image – making decisions on spacing and layout of the words. The Welsh name of the bird will be added to the acetate in the final artwork.
The students used the graphite transfer technique to make a drawing from the photo of their bird last week. Today they placed the acetate over the drawing and used a black permanent marker to copy it directly on to the acetate to make a second layer.
Black marker outline of the bird drawing
The students were introduced to collage art, and spent the last hour choosing coloured sugar paper to collage their bird. This was done directly onto their original drawing, and the students chose to work with scissors or ripping the paper to the size they wanted to infill the bird drawing.
Collage in progress of Little Owl
Mrs Roberts will focus on completing the collages, and adding the Welsh names into the design prior to the images being framed.
Collage of collages, of birds of the Oak
Species list
| Species | English name | Welsh name |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenicurus phoenicurus | Redstart | Tingoch |
| Ficedula hypoleuca | Pied Flycatcher | Gwybedog Brith |
| Corvus frugilegus | Rook | Ydfan |
| Parus major | Great Tit | Titw Mawr |
| Cyanistes caeruleus | Blue Tit | Titw Tomos Las |
| Anthus trivialis | Tree Pipit | Corhedydd Y Coed |
| Phylloscopus sibilatrix | Wood Warbler | Telor Y Coed |
| Columba palumbus | Wood Pigeon | Colomen Y Goedwig |
| Sturnus vulgaris | Starling | Drudwy |
| Athene noctua | Little Owl | Tylluan Fach |
| Garrulus glandarius | Jay | Sgrech Y Coed |
| Erithacus rubecula | Robin | Robin Goch |
| Dendrocopos major | Great Spotted Woodpecker | Cnocell Fraith Fwyaf |
| Coccothraustes coccothraustes | Hawfinch | Gylfrinbraff |
| Sitta europaea | Nuthatch | Delor Y Cnau |
Oriel Gallery
The Oak / Y Dderwen
Group B students by the Oak
Ecologist Yusef Samari came to the school, and we focussed our attention on the Oak trees. Straight away, Yusef found different types of Oak gall. From the Wikipedia article on Oak galls:
The adult female wasp lays single eggs in developing leaf buds. The wasp larvae feed on the gall tissue resulting from their secretions, which modify the oak bud into the gall, a structure that protects the developing larvae until they undergo metamorphosis into adults.
We also found a lot of leaf miners, which are the larval stage of a variety of different insects, very commonly found in Bramble.
Leaf miner in a Bramble leaf
And, of course, an abundance of dead wood, with ubiquitous woodlice!
Oriel Gallery
Reflections
- It‘s a lot of work to write up the notes and sort out the photos and galleries, be good to have a faster, more streamlined process on the website side of things.
- Very useful to have the artist write their process and progress, but it is a lot of extra work. Will have a think about how best to document process, possibly share the work?
Stiwdio3 Café reccie for event
List of species at Esgair Arth
