Kites! The second silk banner...

The second banner began at the Lincoln City Indoor Kite Festival. What an amazing art form!

The kids filled their sketch pads with drawings of the kites and people. They were very focused, attentively sketching for over an hour.

We enjoyed seeing the range of performers.
Awesome drawings!
Many of the kids were drawing this man who was dressed as a jester, so we were delighted when he agreed to pose for us, before performing a kite flying routine of his own!
After we had all filled our sketchbooks with ideas, we returned to the classroom at Taft to design the banner. As a group, we voted on a layout that incorporated people at the bottom and a sky full of kites. With their sketches as a reference, the kids drew the overall design for the final banner.
The drawings were wonderful and full of energy! By the end of the first workshop, we had created the overall design for the kite banner!In between workshops, Annamieka brought the design home and outlined it on the final piece of silk. She also laid down a line of waterbased gutta resist over each black outline that would help to contain the silk paints. The outlined design, ready to be painted.
The second workshop was all about painting the banner. The group started by identifying their own drawings, and adopted a strategy for painting the enormous surface. Objects in the center were painted first, and several students teamed up on intricate areas.
Closeups of the painting process. Note how the thin silk paint is contained within the outlined areas. Parent Kelly helping with kite detail. At this point, all the objects within the design were colored in.

Students had fun playing beneath the silk.

The all-important step of signing the artwork!

Group shot with our masterpiece!

Big thanks to my amazing helpers! Kaline, from Let There Be Arts

Kate!
Kelly!
Peter!

and Dan!

Beach Banner: Stranded Stories on Silk

The first workshop was held at Taft Elementary school, in the art classroom made possible by Let There Be Arts.

Our creative process began with a walk down to the water at Taft. The kids were encouraged to find objects that had been brought by the ocean. Where did the objects come from? What was their story? How did the story of an object stranded by the tides connect Lincoln City with the world?

They were encouraged to observe the scene as a whole, natural beauty and trash included.

After observing and collecting objects on the beach, we returned to the classroom at Taft to sketch what we had seen.

Some of the sketches were completely imaginary :-)

The students then cut out their sketches and assembled them into a collage. This was a good lesson in group process, as they had to obtain everyone's permission to rearrange the drawings many times in order to create the final design. This collage served as the layout for the final silk banner.

In between workshops, Annamieka took the student's drawings and layout from the collage to create the outline for the final banner. She then outlined the design on the silk and protected the outlines with waterbased gutta resist to prep the silk for painting. A giant frame was constructed to stretch the silk for painting. Thank you Peter for building the frame!

The second workshop was very exciting. 14 kids attended to help paint the banner. Students teamed up to paint specific areas of the banner. Paintbrushes flew, and the outlined drawings quickly filled with vibrant colors.

Great white sharks in the bay!

The sheer size of the banner was a challenge. It worked well to paint the objects in the center first, working later out to the edges of the banner.

We voted as a group how to paint the background. A sunset soon filled the sky!

After the entire banner was full of color, each student signed their name along the edge.

Ta-Da!

It was a fun challenge to figure out how to hang the banner in the community center. The ceilings are very tall! Thank you Dan for scaling that ladder!

We were very excited to see the kid's work hanging in the community center!

Welcome to the Lincoln City Banner Project Blog!

Hello, and thank you for visiting our blog!

This is the story of a creative process. Over the past two months, a group of Lincoln City schoolchildren worked in collaboration to design and paint two large scale silk banners to hang in the Lincoln City community center. Each banner tells a story about Lincoln City. The first banner depicts the Siletz bay, and shows objects washed up on the beach that each have a story to tell - trash and natural beauty alike. The second banner draws inspiration from the Lincoln City Indoor Kite festival.

This project was made possible by a grant from the City of Lincoln City, in conjunction with Let There Be Arts and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.