Hello First name / Friend,,

 

 

Consett Academy is a secondary school in Consett, County Durham in the North East of England. As well as a broad and creative curriculum, students have the opportunity to take part in lots of exciting arts-based activities beyond. They are currently journeying and exploring their way through Arts Mark with their student Art Ambassadors. Arts Mark is a creative quality standard for schools and education settings, accredited by Arts Council England.

 

Consett Academy Arts took part in The January Challenge. “We still feel the pang of COVID and it's a vivid reminder of the importance of the arts when balancing the rest of our lives with our personal wellbeing. It's all too easy to let the arts slip away out of day-to-day life, so taking part in the challenge kept the momentum going and took us to unimagined destinations!”

 

 

This weeks challenge is inspired by Consett Academy Arts ‘Poetry Picnic’. Their Arts Ambassadors have been creating recipe books, which includes their own photographs, illustrations, poetry, recipes and family anecdotes around the theme of food, family and community. To share their experiences with other students, the Ambassadors held a ‘Poetry Picnic’ around World Book Day, exploring how writers use food in their poetry, as well as the language used to describe food. As part of the 'Poetry Picnic', students made 'Picnic Portraits' using the contents of their school (packed) lunches. Either a self-portrait or an imagined portrait. 

 

Here's an example from one of the students - Pictured on the left is the contents of a lunch box. Pictured right is the contents made into a portrait - apple slices for hair, crisps for eyebrows and mouth, carrot sticks for the body and yoghurt for cheeks!

 

 

Build a portrait using the food that you eat. Use different food items to make the features, like crisps for hair and apple seeds for eyes. Or, draw inspiration from the shapes of different fruits and vegetables, to create a drawing of a face instead.

 

Now - the poetry part...What words would you use to describe the colours, taste, smell or texture of your portrait? Your poem might be three lines or three pages, anything goes.

 

Make sure your portrait doesn't go to waste - feast on a bit of creativity.

“Our challenge gives a different perspective on the things we eat;

Think about the farm-to-fork timeline - do we know where our food comes from, who produces it, and how we access it? What food cultures are we part of - what do we eat and who do we eat with?”

 

Share your response with friends and family and invite them to join in! 

 

Share your responses with #TheWeeklyChallenge #64MillionArtists on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. 

 

 

 

See you next week, 

from the team at 64 Million Artists

 

P.s. Why not invite a friend to join The Weekly Challenge and kickstart a little creative connection with others?