TATE KIDS

Hi All – enjoying the summer hols?

So, remember when Charlotte wrote us a guest blog talking about the time she made a spin painting with Damien Hirst?

Well I’ve managed to get hold of a couple of pics of her spin-painted skull. LOOK!

Also – well done to Charlotte for noticing the Damien Hirst-designed flag in the closing ceremony.

YOU HAVE THE EYES OF AN EAGLE, CHARLOTTE.

In other Hirst-related news, our friend Paige Dansinger has been using Draw Something to play with art. Check this out on Instagram and look below.

You can see more of Paige’s work on her blog. It’s super impressive!

Tags: Damien Hirst, Spin, spin paintings, Tate Modern

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Guest Blog by Charlotte Dixon:

I was invited by Tate Kids to Damien Hirst Plate Spinning event to live tweet. That is when you tweet what you see as it’s happening.  Kids Co is a great charity for kids in London who teamed up with Damien Hirst and Tate for this activity.  Damien is a supporter of the charity.

What it was like:

We got there about 8 and watched the Lab Coat team setup. These were the people who were helping the kids make their plate.  We found this amusing as not everything went right which is why it is best to always have a test run! But it was a motto for the day: Nothing could be perfect – squirting paint so isn’t going to turn out exactly the way you want but it’s still going to produce beautiful art!

There was a lot of pictures and interviews with Damien and Camila.  I was able to get some pictures of them but couldn’t really hear what they were saying.  Damien was even kind enough to have his picture with me and give me an autograph. Although Camila and Damien were so busy, they were very nice to all the kids and tried to have their photo taken with as many as they could.

After they left, there were still schools and groups coming in and I was able to do a plate with a school.  There was a very nice lady who was MC’ing throughout the day and getting some of the kids on stage with her.

She also made sure there was funky music playing.  I was asked to talk about the tweets. The most popular at the time was:

Art is important for children says Camilla & Damien a huge supporter of Kids Co. #hirstspinpainting http://t.co/J8rTrHhz.

To make a plate:

First we had to write our name, age and school down on a sticker. We also received a ‘I heart DH pin’! Then we had to choose a template. The choices were: a skull, circle, shark. Rocket, butterfly and heart.  I chose the skull. We put on aprons which covered our clothes and went to the stencil drawer to get our template.

Tags: covent garden, Damien Hirst, Games, Spin, Spin game, spin paintings, Tate Kids

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Special Friday treat, everyone. Charlotte Dixon, 10, went to the Damien Hirst show and kindly decided to report back.

(This was originally posted over here, but had permission to repost)

TAKE IT AWAY, C! and enjoy everyone.

——————-

The way that I found about the new Damien Hirst exhibition was about 4 weeks ago when I saw the Tate exhibition on a documentary.
I already knew about him but this got me more interested in him.

On Saturday, my mom and I got to go to the exhibition – I was jumping for joy! The exhibition fills 14 rooms over one floor except for one special piece. When we went in there was a lot of people and the first thing I saw was the hair dryer pushing up the golf ball [What Goes Up Must Come Down, 1994].  But I didn’t care about that because I went right to Dead Head [With Dead Head, 1991] which is a picture of Damien with a dead head.  Damien didn’t kill the man – I think the man donated his body to science but a lot of people still thought it was wrong.  I didn’t.

I wanted to see the Butterfly room, Diamond Skull, and the A Thousand Years which I saw on the documentary which they all looked amazing to me !!!!!

When I saw A Thousand Years, 1990 exhibition at first I thought it was bloody and gruesome but then when you properly look, you can notice the eye lashes on the cows head and then you notice the flies. Normally when you see a fly, you ignore it (or try to kill it!) but with this exhibition you start to notice details and specific sights.

The thing that stood out to me was the Butterfly Room [In and Out of Love]. I thought the butterfly room in the Damien Hirst exhibition was flabbergasting. I, and everyone around me was amazed, even though it was a shame that hundreds of butterflies pull themselves from their cocoons only to die, surrounded by gawping visitors.

I found it amazing that the wings of the butterflies were ugly and boring patterns on the outside but as soon as they opened their wings suddenly there was a magnificent pattern almost like someone had spent years and painted a lovely oil painting.

via http://www.damienhirst.com

Another favorite was the half cow [Mother and Child Divided, 1993]. Interestingly from the documentary I think this was the second attempt because the first one he didn’t cut in a straight line! I really liked being able to look around and see the insides because normally you don’t get to see body parts like this.  I really want to be a forensic scientist so this was my heaven!

The diamond room [Judgement Day 2009], pill room [Pharmacy, 1992], Spin Paintings, and dots [Spot Paintings] were fun and quirky but not as quirky as the other parts of the exhibition.

via http://www.damienhirst.com

The best was The Love of God – a skull covered in diamonds! You have to queue for a little bit but it is SO worth it! They only let a certain amount of people in at a time which is good because then it’s not that crowded. When we were allowed to go in, there was three body guards. When you walk in there was people in there but my eyes instantly went to the teeth which are not covered in diamonds.  The skull is … no words to describe it really!  I could have stayed and looked at it for a long time as the longer I looked at it the more I started to noticed things like there were diamonds actually inside the mouth and everywhere.

I recommend everyone should go to the Damien Hirst exhibition because it’s so amazing.  It is probably best for 6+ as it could be a bit overwhelming for young kids.

We are going back in August and I can’t wait!

Tags: Damien Hirst, Spin game, spin paintings, Tate Modern

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Hi everyone!

I’m Fiona and I run ARTventurers, providing art and craft classes and events for kids of all ages in the north east of England. We try to get kids involved in creative activities from an early age. We also run Little ARTventurers toddler art classes where children as young as 18 months can explore and create with lots of different materials and techniques.

Recently, at one of the Little ARTventurers classes, we were inspired by Damien Hirst’s colourful spin paintings to create our own spin pictures using salad spinners. It was a great hit with all of the kids, loads of smiles, “oooh”s and giggles! This is how we did it…..

You need:
* a salad spinner (if yours has drainage holes in the bottom you’ll need to put it on a tray or plate to catch any drips!)
* some card or paper cut into circles to fit inside the salad spinner (or a paper plate if it fits)
* some runny coloured paint – we used readymix paint and watered it down a little bit
* a teaspoon

Do it!
* Place the paper/card circle inside the salad spinner – you might want to fix it down with a piece of blu-tac
* Use the spoon to put some blobs of runny paint on the paper/card – it works best if you can try and put the blobs at the centre of the circle
* Put the lid on your salad spinner and spin away!
* Take the lid off to reveal your spin painting.

Top Tips
Try adding different colours and spinning again? Or add sparkle by sprinkling glitter?
We used spring colours for our spin paintings as part of a “Spring” themed session – it’s a great experiment in colour mixing too – enjoy!

Tags: Damien Hirst, Hirst, Spin, spin paintings, Tate Create, Try it!

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