Artist: Ammie Flexen | Cummins Engineer: Nathan O’Grady 

Class Group: Year 4 |  Subject: States of Matter & Sound

Session 1 & 2 – February 2019

In our first session we investigated sounds in different ways based on science, art and emotions. Nathan, our buddy from Cummins brought an amp that allowed us to change sound frequencies and watch sound vibrations change patterns sand. We explored the effect sound has on our mood and tested out the sound of water to see if we could create relaxing sounds by pouring, splashing and problem solving with different materials. We used objects and instruments to explore different types of soundscapes. We spent the day exploring different sounds and soundwave patters and had our first introduction to working with clay.

We tried to make different sounds and decide which ones are calm and which ones are not:

Pouring water on the umbrella was calm

I liked pouring water on the slide

I liked the watering can

We all liked different things  

Miss this is team work because we have to work together

I love getting wet!

If you pour slowly it will trickle down like little patterns of rain but if you go fast it’s like a flood

I poured lots of water down the slide and it was like a cartoon river

The water makes different patterns on metal and wood

I liked the clay, it was very arty

I felt so relaxed (clay)

I made loads of different patterns

Teacher: Was it art or science?

It was Art! Science! (Children begin to debate) children joined up the two subjects to make a new subject: Artience, Sci-art

It was a bit noisy

I’ve never really thought about sound before

I was shocked because I didn’t know that sound is art

I never knew that vibrations could make patterns

When you scraped the block the bottom part gave vibrations to the sand and that’s how the sand moves around

Wow!

We could hear the sound and see it

We could see it vibrating. Normally you don’t see sound vibrating

I felt like a scientist

There were things that I didn’t know and I found them out

That’s what scientists do – they find out stuff

I never knew that you could be an artist with clay. I thought art was just drawing. I’ve realised you could do different stuff to be an artist

Im starting an art gallery at home, not just drawing or painting. We’ll be using mosaic, clay and other arty things

For the sand you could actually use tools and get your hands messy

We love being messy!

Sessions 3 – March 2019

Today we explored the visual effects that sounds can create and our emotions and how we feel when we listen to certain sounds.  Nathan, our buddy from Cummins, helped us to understand how the wave patterns showed on the computer and we began to predict the kinds of sounds that we would hear by what we could see. We used our pure imaginations to draw our own impression of the soundscapes we recorded in session 1, some were screechy, some were calm. We listened to music and worked with charcoal to do reverse drawings with rubbers to create wave patterns. In the afternoon we worked with clay to create wave patterns in the clay and tried some different techniques in clay to make patterns responding to clay. We learned about abstract art and making art based on how sounds made us feel.

 

 

Sessions 4 – April 2019