Our story-building class at Clerihan went brilliantly. The kids here chose the plot of the amazing animated film ‘Despicable Me’ to look at and work out on the board. What brilliant character, that oddly lovable Gru, and all his ridiculous minions!
Astrid does a short story-board of the plot of ‘Despicable Me’.
Suitably inspired by looking at the plot of this animated film, the kids got to work on their own stories.
Astrid and Aoife help some ambitious world travelling pop-up people.
Early in the morning on Thursday we made our way back out to Rathkeevin, thinking about what it was like when we had to get up for school that early. As usual Astrid was waiting for us in the car-park, armed with her box of pencils, rubbers, scissors and all sorts of paper. Since we were a bit early we got to wait in the teachers’ lounge (imagine that!) while Principal Padraig talked to the class about the day ahead.
Everyone was excited to see us when we finally did stop by the classroom, eager to get their latest characters off their sheets of paper and marching about. Not everyone had got a chance to show off their characters yet, so Aoife and I went around the classroom to gather up everyone’s favourite characters so we could stick them up on the blackboard with blue-tack so everyone could have a look.
The kids explain their art.
We got all of the students to come to the front of the class and take turns telling us a little bit about their characters.
Here’s a little sneak peek at some of the great work Presentation Primary has been doing. This folder pocket is bursting with unique characters, ready to hop out and explore the world. Check back soon for week two of our art adventure!
Dear readers,
Here we have our very first post which will hopefully shed a bit of light on what you will see on this page in the future. This is the technical stuff, the nitty-gritty about how all of you (and our team) are going help to create and bring to life our two-dimensional friends and set them loose in the world.
Have a read through it, show your parents (or for the parents you can show your kids [and for other grown-ups, just show your friends]). What you’ll find below is basically what we’ve sent out to all the schools for the teachers and parents to see so they know what will be going on during our project. And if you want to see some examples of paper pop up people made by our artist Astrid, there’s pictures of them in the text too.
Be sure to check back regularly though or you’ll miss out on some mischief and astounding adventures, straight from the page into the real world.
If you want to get in touch or already have some great ideas for what you want your characters to get up to, leave a comment below – we’d love see what you think.
See you again soon,
– The Pop Up People
Clonmel Junction Festival Primary School Project 2014
Sponsored by Abbott
Little People, Big Perspectives, from 2D to 3D
Designed and facilitated by Astrid Walsh
Project Concept
The idea behind this project is to work with the children on creating a series of characters using simple line drawings. These characters will then be cut out and used to create a series of scenarios or small stories within the children’s environment or 3D world. These will be uploaded to a specially designed and managed blog, to which all the participating schools will have access. The scale of the figures will vary, so they can be used within a classroom situation but also scaled up to appear in the real world. In the run up to the festival, groups of these characters will appear in business and landmarks around Clonmel town. The construction and realisation of these characters and their stories will be recorded on the blog. The participating children, other students and the public will be invited to follow the characters by checking in on the blog. The pupils will also be invited to send copies of their cut-outs figures to relatives and friends in distant places, with a view to getting back images, stories and ‘adventures’ to add to the blog.
Topics covered
Line drawing, figure drawing, scale, 3 dimensions vs. 2 dimensions, character development, story telling, collaborative teamwork, working with site-specificity, blogging, photography.
The characters created by the students will be used to create simple scenarios incorporating everyday objects and furniture. These will be grouped together to create variations and more complex story lines or situations. These stories and characters will have an on-line life in the form of a blog and on other applications like Instagram. This will enable the schools to see what the other participating schools have created and opens the door for the project to potentially outlive its practical time frame, with children inputting further stories and adventures if they so wish. Leading up to the festival, the characters will be placed in various street locations and shop windows creating a trail of paper figures throughout the town.
Pop Up People 