Year 8 student creates stunning artwork from recycled materials

Kirsty Tarran, a Year 8 student, has used old magazines to craft a stunning collage that really highlights her creative skills and imagination.  Kirsty was prompted to create the artwork to enhance a shutter in her room, which her Dad made to stop the light coming in at night and early in the morning.  Kirsty thought the shutter was a bit dull so she decided to jazz it up and make it a feature.  Not only has Kirsty shared photographs of her beautiful artwork but you can also enjoy watching her clever time-lapse video which she put together to demonstrate the technique she used to create the design.

Kirsty said: “I decided I wanted to make it look like I was looking out into a jungle. I have done two other collages like this before, both of people made using magazine cuttings. The Toucan collage took me two days to complete.  I enjoyed creating this piece because it was very calm and repetitive, I liked the colours and how I got to reuse magazines that aren’t being used anymore.”

Mrs James, Lead Teacher for Art, commented: “Kirsty has gone above and beyond developing her creative skills during lockdown. She has completed all the set tasks she has been assigned and has used her own initiative to work independently on her collage skills. Her time-lapse video is a brilliant example of how to complete a magazine collage and could now be used as a tutorial to show other students this technique.”

Kirsty also impressed with Mrs James with some work her class have been developing on the theme of Sweets and Cakes.  This has been a popular topic and, despite the difficult circumstances, students have been working hard on their drawing skills.

Kirsty said: “For the chocolate logos we were asked by Mrs James to find some well-known chocolates or sweets around our house and then blow them up so you could only see a portion of the logo. If you picked Cadbury’s you could just do the curly C, or something like that.”