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Prep School Art Festival at Stowe

in November, five lucky Senior Department pupils were selected by Beechwood Head of Art Mrs Kelway-Bamber to be part of the Prep School Art Festival at Stowe

They were treated to a jam-packed, art-filled day. If you haven’t visited Stowe School before, then I highly recommend a visit if for no other reason than to admire the architecture. Leo, Otto, Isaac, Arisa and Sasha were awed from the moment we stepped foot in the grand entrance hall to when we left the extremely well-equipped Art Studio. There was even a unicorn next to the bathrooms and minibus sized golf carts to transport you around the campus!

The day was a celebration of the ocean and all aquatic life. We started by designing aquatic themed name badges whilst enjoying juice and chocolate croissants – it was hard to be entirely focused on the art work when sitting in a beautiful hall underneath an elaborate domed ceiling but we just about contained our excitement! We then made our way to the Art School alongside a variety of other Prep schools from around the country.

During the first workshop, pupils made exotic sea creatures out of a huge array of recycled materials ranging from ping-pong balls to plastic takeaway cutlery to bubble wrap.

After a delicious buffet lunch, they created a virtual reality ocean filled with fish, coral and sea grasses. It was an incredible experience to wear the VR glasses and explore the world they created. The pupils then made stencils of plant life and sea creatures ready to spray paint onto giant canvases. Finally, the pupils were taught how to etch on plastic and printed their own fish drawings.

The day finished with an exhibition of all the artwork that had been created throughout the day as well as the announcement of the winner of the ‘Name Badge Competition’, which was won by our very own Isaac C with his jellyfish style name badge.

What a brilliant end to a fun-filled, creative day.  Thank you to everyone involved in the day at Stowe – we are looking forward to next year already!

Miss Mac


Quotes from the Day

“I especially enjoyed the spray-painting task because we collaborated with each other from all the different schools. I made a mutant hammer-head fish and some coral!” Arisa T

“I liked the etching workshop as I learnt a new skill and I was really pleased with how it turned out. We had a piece of plastic and an image of a fish; we used an etching needle to trace the image and then added detail. We used a squeegee to apply ink to the plastic etching and then removed any excess blobs of ink with scrim. The plastic then went through a press with damp paper to transfer the image onto the paper. The artwork we created and the plastic etchings were then displayed.” Otto C

“I enjoyed the VR experience the most as it was a unique opportunity to express our creativity. We created a virtual, abstract scene of the ocean. I drew some seaweed and coral.” Isaac C

“I was so impressed with the ingenuity and composure of our pupils throughout this fantastic day. Thank you to Stowe for inviting us to be part of this wonderful experience.” Mrs KB

“I had a great day out with some of our Senior Department artists, it was wonderful to learn new skills alongside the pupils and be inspired by their creativity. They were very helpful, providing me with plenty of feedback throughout the day – even if I did receive many more ‘even better if’ suggestions, compared to ‘what went well’ comments!” Miss Mac

Here are some photos from the day:

Prep School Art Festival at Stowe