Ten pupils and 5 staff were lucky enough to visit Arts University Bournemouth funded by DepARTure arts on Wednesday April 17th. We left Westfield at half two and returned at seven thirty. Rosie Russell from Departure arts met us at the university and joined us. We were even treated to a delicious meal of lasagne, salad, chips and garlic bread, it was that tasty some of us had seconds!
Firstly we enjoyed a visit to the museum of plastics (MoDiP) where we saw a wide selection of 20th and 21st century massed produced artefacts all made from plastic.
We then had a tour around various parts of the arts college seeing the photography department, graphic design department and then the animation department. Our pupils and staff were blown away by the work being done by some of the third year students.
We then spent an hour with James Price from DepARTure arts who ran an Animation workshop for us showing us some of the techniques and various programmes used by the students at the university. Our pupils were very good at sharing their knowledge of the programmes that they use with Mrs Aylott in ICT where many of the group are working towards their Creative Imedia award/ certificate.
We then all had great fun making a little flip book from two images. Léon said he thought the animated flip book was really cool!
Thomas volunteered to be animated and Rhys helped James using the stop frame animation programme, Thomas moved slowly around the room and Rhys took the photos. We watched the process on the big screen and others became involved. It was stressed that animation requires patience and can take a long time. After a short time and excellent team work we were able, in a blink of the eye, to see the animated film!
One of the group is working towards his Arts Award so will be able to use this visit as evidence for this qualification.
Thanks to Emma, a third year commercial photography student and to Lizzie from Widening Participation for showing us around and a big thank-you to DepARTure arts for funding this through their Short Breaks programme.
