#THWCreates Challenge

29 June – 19 July 2020

Children’s Art Week: Mini challenge 5

‘Finding Trewyn Studio was a sort of magic. Here was a studio, a yard and garden where I could work in open air and space.’ Barbara Hepworth talking about her studio in St Ives.

The colours, patterns, smells and sounds in Hepworth’s garden in St Ives inspired ideas for her sculptures. The holes in her sculptures offered interesting views to different parts of her garden.

Imagine a Hepworth sculpture with a hole to peep through. Imagine a beautiful garden on the other side. Draw the sculpture and add in your imaginary garden.

In your garden… Is it day or night? What is the weather like? What kind of plants are in your garden? Are there any animals or birds?

Children’s Art Week: Mini challenge 4

Barbara Hepworth made a series of prints called The Aegean Suite after a visit to Greece. The title of the series refers to the sea that surrounds Greece and Hepworth gave the prints titles that refer to the sea, the sun and the moon. Use circles and straight lines to create a drawing or painting that represents one of these titles:

Sun and Marble

Cool Moon

Sun and Water

In this short film, one of our artists, Vinny James, uses Hepworth’s prints as inspiration to create stained glass. Using tissue paper, acetate, glue and a marker pen, make your own stained glass and turn it into a window decoration or mobile.

Children’s Art Week: Mini Challenge 3

Today’s #THWCreates challenge is set by our Cultural Gardener, Katy.

Right now, in The Hepworth Wakefield Garden, many ladybirds have gone through their metamorphosis – the full life cycle of larva to pupa to adult. They change from a more rectangular baby, that can only crawl, into a smaller oval adult that has the power to fly. When they metamorphosise they attach onto something and spend a few days shifting their body into a completely new shape within a case.

What do you have to do to change a rectangle into an oval? Draw one thing and by adding lines change it into something else entirely. If you add wings, can the thing fly?

There are 26 species in the UK (that are readily recognisable as ladybirds) and they all have different patterns on the wings… 2 spot, 7 spot, black, yellow, all sorts!

If you had wings what pattern would you want on them? How many spots would you have? Where would you fly? Imagine you are flying above your house, garden or city. Draw or paint what can you see from the sky.

I feel Barbara Hepworth might have liked ladybirds as they have circles!

Children’s Art Week: Mini Challenge 2

Assemblage is a work of art that is created by bringing together things that you find, a bit like a collection of objects.

Gather together a collection of natural objects to use in your art. This could be twigs, stones, flowers, feathers, leaves or any other natural materials you can find on your street, on a walk or in a local park.

Arrange your objects. This could be by colour, size, shape or texture.

Make shapes and patterns with your natural materials to make an artwork.

You have created ephemeral artwork which means it is temporary and will eventually disappear. Draw or photograph your assemblages so you always have a record of them!

More things to do

What do you notice about your objects? Do they make interesting shadows? What patterns or lines can you see when you look closely?

Close your eyes and trace your hand over one of your objects. Draw only what you can feel. It helps to keep the pencil on the paper the whole time. Only open your eyes when you have finished drawing!

Use one of your objects as a stencil to draw or paint over. This reveals the outer shape and silhouette of your object.

Look closely at one of your objects and zoom in on one part that has an interesting texture. Draw this small section big! Use different marks and lines to show the texture and shadows you can see.

Children’s Art Week: Mini Challenge 1

Barbara Hepworth, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, was born in Wakefield. Her father was a surveyor for the council and as a child she accompanied him on his inspections of local roads and bridges. When she was older, Hepworth commissioned a photographer to take pictures of the Yorkshire landscape to remind her of the view from her father’s car. You can view some of the photographs in the image gallery.

Draw or paint

Imagine you are on a long car journey. What can you see from the car windows? Is it a town or country scene? What shapes and lines can you see passing by your window? Can you see hills, caves, water, buildings or something else?

Draw or paint your imagined landscape. What can you smell and hear in your landscape?

Share your work on social media using #ChildrensArtWeek #THWCreates

#THWCreates Challenges

Creative Challenge 6

In 1952 Barbara Hepworth described the things that make up her ‘usual working day’: “These things are immensely important to me… My home and my children; listening to music, and thinking about its relation to the life of forms; the need for dancing as recreation, and where dancing links with the actual physical rhythm of carving; the intense pleasure derived from tools and craftsmanship – all these things are daily expressions of the whole.

Barbara Hepworth had a lifelong passion for music and dance, and she has described carving as having a rhythmic quality, like music. Many of Hepworth’s sculptures capture a sense of movement. Hepworth’s Curved Form (Pavan) 1956 refers to a stately court dance from the 16^th and early 17th centuries.

Draw

Make a drawing or painting whist listening to music or to the sounds you can hear outside. Make colourful marks on your page that represent the sounds – slow or fast, loud or quiet, spiky or flowing, high pitched or low hum.

Make

Create your own curved sculpture inspired by your drawings.

1. Cut paper or thin card into long strips roughly 3 cm wide. Aim to make one long strip roughly 50cm long. You can join pieces together end to end and use all sorts of different paper from cardboard packaging to newspaper or wrapping paper.
2. At this point you may decide to colour or collage both sides of your strips, or you can choose to leave the texture of the paper bare.
3. Holding both ends of the paper, twist and roll it to create curves and shapes – you might want to do this with a partner. Don’t let go, it may unravel!
4. Once you are happy with your shape fix the two ends together with tape or a stapler to create a continuous looped sculpture.
5. Now you could use another strip of paper to extend or join your sculpture to another one.
6. You could also stand your sculpture on a sheet of paper by the window or outdoors. Trace the shadows cast through the sculpture onto your paper. Could you make this into a new paper sculpture?

Creative Challenge 5

“I have always found people’s hands an absorbing interest; watching their movement and gesture reveal their inner thoughts and purposes.” – Barbara Hepworth 1952

Barbara Hepworth was fascinated with people’s hands, believing their movement to reveal a person’s inner thoughts. In 1943 Hepworth cast her own left hand in plaster – she famously described the left hand of the sculptor as ‘the thinking and feeling hand.’

We have all been washing and sanitising and clapping our hands during the current pandemic, so for this creative challenge we would like you to capture hands that are important to you.

Draw

Try drawing your own hand without taking your pencil off the paper; then try using both hands at the same time; finally try drawing your hand with your eyes closed. Sketch other people’s hands in different positions – at rest and in action. Can you shade or paint your drawing to seem 3D? Could you create a flip book of your hands clapping?

Sculpt

Now you could try creating your hand out of different materials. You could build it in clay or plasticine; manipulate strips of cardboard or wire to create a basic shape then mould it using newspaper or paper towels. Could you sculpt your hand using textiles?

There are plenty of examples of hands (and feet) that we have displayed and have in our collection that you could use for inspiration. Have a look at the way Christina Quarles and Maggi Hambling paint hands or look at Toby Ziegler’s giant foot.

Don’t forget to share your work with us!

Creative Challenge 4

“If the Winged Figure … gives people a sense of being airborne in rain and sunlight and nightlight I will be very happy.” – Barbara Hepworth

Winged Figure, 1961-2 is one of the most popular works on display at the gallery. It stands at nearly 6m tall and is the full-scale prototype for the commission that adorns the side of John Lewis on Oxford Street, London.

Draw

Imagine you can fly and where you would most like to fly to. Draw what you might see from the sky above your home. Draw your home, the roads and paths that you travel as well as your favourite places.

Animate

Now have a go at animating your journey. There are plenty of free animation apps available to use. You can draw and cut out characters, use playdough, plasticine or your favourite toys to populate the scenes and create a stop motion film using Stop Motion Studio and iMotion. You could paint your journey straight into the Brushes Redux app and it will play back your layers as an animation. You could use the FlipaClip app to create a flip book style animation of you travelling through the air.

We’ve used animation a number of times to tell stories about works or artists in our collection. You can take a look at our Stanley Spencer animation, using Spencer’s own writings to bring one of his paintings to life or you can explore little known facts about Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore’s life and careers.

For more inspiration you can read our artist Q&A with Leo Crane who worked with us on the Stanley Spencer animation.

Don’t forget to share your work with us! Send to marketing@hepworthwakefield.org or upload to social media using #THWCreates.

Creative Challenge 3

Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man sculpture group stands outside The Hepworth Wakefield, next to the River Calder. Hepworth wanted her sculptures to breathe, interact with one another and be in the landscape. So for our Creative Challenge 3 we want you to be the sculpture…

Stand outside or near an open window. Close your eyes, be still, breathe and listen. What can you hear? Can you feel a breeze or the sun on your face? What else do you notice?

Play, stack and build

Now make your own Family of Man sculptures. Play, stack and build using objects from around your house. Look for interesting materials, colours and textures. Try making sculptures of yourself and your family. Experiment with balancing objects and trying different arrangements that look like a figure.

Draw 

Draw your family or friendship group in the style of Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man. Hepworth created different sized groups, so you could also look at the larger group residing at Yorkshire Sculpture Park for inspiration. Use squares, ovals, circles  and different textures to describe your group.

Don’t forget to share your work with us so we can add your masterpiece to our family gallery.

Creative Challenge 2

‘In the contemplation of nature, we are perpetually renewed, our sense of mystery and our imagination is kept alive…’ Barbara Hepworth, 1934

In 1946 Hepworth wrote, ‘I spend whole periods of time drawing when I search for forms and rhythms and curvatures for my own satisfaction.’

Create a sculpture inspired by the view from your window. Take inspiration from Albert Wainwright’s painting of Robin Hood’s Bay.

Draw 

Spend some time looking at the view from your house. Look at the shapes and patterns in the buildings, trees, plants, clouds, roads, birds going by. Draw what you see. Have you noticed anything new?

Make 

1. Choose 3 shapes from your drawings and redraw them onto card. Each shape should fill one piece of card.  
2. Cut out the shapes.
3. Play and experiment with joining them together. You might like to fold or bend the shapes.
4. Fix them together to create a standing sculpture. 
5. The challenge is to make a stable sculpture without using sticky tape or glue! 

Handy hint: Try cutting slots into your shapes or use straws/sticks to join different pieces together.

See below how to share your sculpture with us!

Creative Challenge 1

One of Barbara Hepworth’s most famous sculptures is Spring, 1966. This week marks the spring equinox and pleasingly, the start of a spell of good weather, so we encourage you to be inspired by nature and create a work about spring. This could be a painting, a collage using leaves and twigs you find on the ground, or even a sculpture made up of found items, just like Bill Brandt and Henry Moore did. 

Share your work with us

Please share with us images of your work by sending them to marketing@hepworthwakefield.org or upload to social media using #THWCreates and we will add the best ones to our family online art gallery