James Lake Artist Workshop

On Monday the 8th of October 2018, all of the Year 11 Art & Ceramics students gathered in the Old Refectory ready for an exciting day ahead. Having been given information about James Lake in previous lessons, we all went away to research James’s fascinating technique of creating large sculptures using cardboard as his main media. As we have worked and developed our painting or ceramics skills for our GCSE portfolio, we were intrigued at the prospect of using not only a different material (cardboard), but also at trialling a technique unfamiliar to us.

The day began with an introduction from James, and then a quick look at some of his incredible sculptures he’d brought in to show us. We then were told we would be trying to create a 3D portrait by the end of the day, and immediately started off with template of a skull James had provided for us. This section tested our ability to follow instructions, as we had to assemble the cardboard skull from many pieces with the use of just glue and our hands! We all ended up with identical skulls, and so from our GCSE theme of “Identity”, we each wanted to make the skull our own. Here we became more creative; with the guidance of James, we each had to figure out how we would add the facial features to the skull to make them lifelike and interesting. After 6 creative hours, we thanked James greatly and were left with 24 unique 3D heads we each made our own.

This process taught me to leave my comfort zone in my artwork; it was the radically different technique that showed me there are many ways to express yourself through art. I found James’s patient and helpful approach extremely useful as it gave me confidence to ask him questions, and accept it is OK to make mistakes! It was a brilliant day for all of us.

Article by Gabriel, Year 11.