Children set alight by George and his Dragon 10 July (43)

Press Release (no.43)

10 July 2002

Tutors from the Kent Institute of Art & Design were at Sturry CP School near Canterbury last week as part of Big Arts Week. This is a national event that brings the nation's best art and artists into classrooms with the aim of firing up young people about the arts.

Ian Bottle and Gary Clough, who usually teach KIAD's teenage Foundation and National Diploma students, worked with over 300 five-to-ten year olds over three days on a creative project called George and the Dragon. The result is a 14-foot-square installation suspended in the school hall, on eight sides of which are pasted all the children's paintings.

So what was the brief? Using Uccello's work of the same name for inspiration (see below for more info) the children were asked to imagine that 'George and the princess in the painting, lived with the tamed dragon in the same house. They then each painted a scene from the everyday life of the three.

'It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career' says Ian. 'We worked with massive rolls of paper in the hall and the results are amazing, young children are very uninhibited about drawing and colour. Everyone got involved and the older children would come back to help the little ones.'

And Ian has drawn inspiration from the project too. He has long been interested in the artist and child and later in the year will curate an exhibition of work by artists who have been inspired by their children's creative efforts.