Stage II

$12,800 (2005 Regional Arts Fund)

Ongoing: November 2005 – December 2007

Stage II involved a 2 week writer in residence project with children’s author and literacy advocate Paul Stafford.  During June 2006 Paul conducted writing workshops with primary aged students.   The Illustration phase was reconstituted as a ‘new technologies’ project scheduled for 2007.

Writing Workshops - 9 day tour, 13-23 June 2006

Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobar, Hermidale, Coonamble, Nyngan, Walgett, Warren and the Walgett-Bourke and Dubbo (Cobar campus) Schools of Distance Education (utilising satellite technology to communicate with remotely based students)

High schools were also offered a careers development session focussed on new media arts by Paul Stafford (uptake: NIL) and one staff development workshop was completed with School of Distance Education in Cobar.

PROJECT OFFERED TO: All primary schools in the selected towns were offered Writing the Waves (total of 16 schools).  Total workshops offered: 27, conducted: 22.  Approx participation: 200 students

The Online Illustration Mentorship & Virtual Gallery – 2007

The mentorship students access to mentoring by two professional artists who will offer feedback on children’s work which will be scanned and emailed to the artists.  It is hoped some of this feedback and professional input will guide potential young artists in their pursuit of art as a vocation later in life.

Over a number of weeks each student will receive email feedback on the drawings they scan and send to their mentor.  The student will go away to work on their illustration, scan it into the school computer and email it back to Brad or Shane for more feedback.  And the cycle continues…until the work is complete.

After all of the pictures are complete our fearless and brilliant ‘webmaster’ Ben Lynch will create a digital page where all the work will be ‘hung’ – like a virtual gallery!  Students will be able to visit the gallery to view their own work and the work of all the other children in the region!  This will include all the wild tales written by students who worked with Paul Stafford during the 2006 Writing the Waves Tour.

SHANE SUMMERTON is a Bathurst based illustrator and cartoonist.  He has illustrated extensively for national magazines and newspapers with his artwork and illustrations also featuring in many books for young readers including “Fully Faked” and “Alex the Whale”.

Shane regularly collaborates with children’s writer and literacy advocate Paul Stafford who visited schools in the Outback Arts region in 2006 as part of the Regional Arts funded “Writing the Waves Project”.  Shane has joined forces with Paul on celebrated projects like ‘Pants on Fire’ and a series of colourful websites showcasing work created by children in their workshops.

Style: Shane’s  style  has  been  likened  to  Mambo  art - his  fortes  include  caricatures  and  cartooning. 

BRAD HAMMOND is a brilliant artist and illustrator living in (yep, you guessed it) Bathurst.  A graduate of the National School of Arts in Johannesburg, South Africa, Brad holds a BA in Fine Arts.  Brad has exhibited at  major  galleries throughout  the  world  including  the  Cite Internationale des  Arts  in  Paris,  Sydney’s  Brian  Moore  Gallery,  and  the  Mossgreen  Gallery  in  Melbourne.

“Brad employs an ancient technique (the encaustic method) to create paintings whose imagery derives from contemporary technology… His art is transcendental and the mood contemplative… They convey the emotional and inner sense of place...  For Hammond there is the outer and the inner landscape, as in Aboriginal Art, of physical pace and place of the mind”.

Style: Brad specialises in abstract art, particularly landscapes

OFFERED: 16 schools

Stage I

$14,486 (2005 Regional Arts Fund)  Click back

Children's author and illustrator, Paul Stafford, worked in residence in 12 remote schools in the Outback Arts Region including - Carinda, Quambone, Lightning Ridge, Collarenebri, Byrock, Enngonia, Weilmoringle, Cobar and Hermidale.

The  Writing  the  Waves  tour  was  envisaged  as  an  opportunity  for  remote  and  geographically  isolated  schools  to  have  face-to-face  writing  workshops  with  published  children’s  author  Paul  Stafford.

The  focus  of  the  project  was  on  the  social  purpose  of  writing;   what’s  the  point  of  writing  at  all,  how  can  writing  be  adapted/transformed  into  something  more  than  straight  narrative,  and  what  outcomes  can  be  created  using  students’  written  material? 

To  this  end,  the  Writing  the  Waves  project  was  conceived  as  a  three-tiered  production; 

1.  The  face-to-face  writing  workshop  tour  of  author  Paul  Stafford  around  participating  schools  in  the  Far  Western  NSW  region (end of Term 3, 2004)

2.  Construction  of  an  illustrated  website  to  display  the  completed  stories  that  resulted  from  the  author  workshop  with  the  students.    On-line  mentoring  &  feedback  on  the  stories  is  provided  by  Paul  Stafford,  and  basic  editing  of  material  for  web-site.

3.  Recording  the  completed  stories  over  the  telephone  from  radio  station  2MCE  FM  (Charles  Sturt  University  Bathurst),  producing  into  radio  documentaries,  and  broadcasting  from  selected  regional  radio  stations.

MEDIA: 2 Radio Interviews on ABC Radio National’s Bush Telegraph (Paul Stafford was  interviewed  just  prior  to  departing,  and  discussed  the  aims  &  possible  outcomes  of  the  tour,  then  reinterviewed  on  the  road  at  Bourke  Public  School). 

www.pantsonfire.com.au - The Writing the  Waves  project  team  has  constructed  a  web-site,  illustrated  by  children’s  illustrator  Shane  Summerton,  and  stories  have been  uploaded  and  illustrated. 

Studio Producer Adam Thompson produced a series of recordings and a documentary/radio showcase of written work.

RESPONSES - The schools themselves was universally positive. There is a dearth of opportunities for face-to-face contact with artists of any kind for these students, due to the logistics associated with extreme geographical isolation and financial realities. 

The only negative issue raised was the inability to facilitate ‘follow-up’ projects. The students’ expectations are raised, their enthusiasm fired, the possibilities highlighted, and then the project moves on.  This can have a most deleterious effect on young artists.

Technological advances have at least provided opportunities for the schools to access on-line facilities and display their work to the outside world, and this project made great use of web-based technologies and recording facilities/radio technologies. 

PARTICIPATION

455 students ranging in age from 8-15 (participation of Central Schools at Collarenebri and Lightning Ridge meant that high school students also participated)

30-40% of these students were Aboriginal. 

60% were male and 40% were female