Tree of Life Project

Primary, Year 3 and 4, Age 7-9
Stephen Bruce,
Anson Primary School
Cricklewood
Brent, UK

 Screen Prints of Tree of Life
This project, which involved children in Year 3 and 4, aimed to develop a cross-curricular topic with a focus in art and leading to work in science, English, geography and religious education. Based on the tree as a universal symbol of life, it involved painting, weaving and print-making (with the artist Gail Altschuler) and a visit to the Day of the Dead Exhibition at the Museum of Mankind.
 
Class Display of Tree of Life designs The project was introduced to the class by the teacher who mounted a display of images of the 'Tree of Life' which was used to generate discussion of a historical, critical and contextual nature. Central to the display was an Islamic prayer carpet showing the Tree of Life in the Garden of Paradise image and this led to the first practical art activity which was designing and painting prayer carpets with a 'Tree of Life' design. The children used powder paints with a variety of brushes to enable detailed pattern work and gold paint was used to highlight certain areas.
 
To develop continuity in their work the children then produced a woven image of their symbolic painting. They used small stiff card looms which were wound with thin string to provide the warp. A wide selection of wools and yarns with contrasting textures had been collected and long needles were large eyes were used. With this technique it is possible to start anywhere on the loom although most children started at one end and worked down. Progress was regularly monitored and discussed, providing an ideal opportunity for the children to develop their art vocabularly. Sequins and beads were then sown onto the finished weavings for embellishment Display of Weavings

The museum visit to the Day of the Dead exhibition was an important stimulus for the print-making activities that followed. This Mexican festival is an extremely joyous and colourful celebration to remember loved ones who have died and the class participated in a workshop session aimed at introducing the children to Mexican culture and the Festival. The exhibition contained many 'Tree of Life' images and therefore was particularly relevant to the project.
Screen Printed Wall Hanging The final stage of the project was a five week screen printing residency with visiting South African artist and print-maker Gail Altschuler. This consisted of four practical workshops with a fifth session to evaluate the work produced. The artist began by showing examples of her own work and then introduced the children to the screen printing medium.
Stencils of trees were cut out and also objects that might be hung from the tree (these included images and shapes that the children had sketched during their visit to the Day of the Dead exhibition). Water-based fabric ink was printed onto pieces of cotton using the stencils and then overprinted. The finished pieces were decorated with sequins and sewn together to make wall hangings.

Screen printing is an exciting medium opening up many areas for development - wax crayons or soft pastels can be drawn directly onto the screen, for example, or it can be related to the study of other artists' work such as the paper cut outs made by Matisse or other modern artists. This project linked with science when the children learnt about the life cycle of trees; with geography when the children researched Mexico; and with English in recording aspects of the study, writing poetry and stories about trees.

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