Autumn: Map of Me: Lesson 2
Making Maps
Making Maps
Warm-up and Introduction: 10 mins
- Show the class Map of Days by Grayson Perry. Map of Days is an unusual self-portrait that takes the form of a walled town. The area in the town represents the artist, his personality traits, appearance and emotions. The town wall is like the artists skin and the surrounding landscape shows external influences that shape his identity.
- Talk about the artwork with the entire class. Discuss the idea, materials, and process used in making the artwork.
- Look at pictures of real cities and town maps that have a fort or defensive walls. Look at cities in France, Italy or Ireland. Wexford town is also a good example of a walled town. Medieval town Maps are a wonderful source of map imagery
- Show the class Map of Days by Grayson Perry. Map of Days is an unusual self-portrait that takes the form of a walled town. The area in the town represents the artist, his personality traits, appearance and emotions. The town wall is like the artists skin and the surrounding landscape shows external influences that shape his identity.
- Talk about the artwork with the entire class. Discuss the idea, materials, and process used in making the artwork.
- Look at pictures of real cities and town maps that have a fort or defensive walls. Look at cities in France, Italy or Ireland. Wexford town is also a good example of a walled town. Medieval town Maps are a wonderful source of map imagery
Development: 40 mins
- Explain to children that they will create a map of their own identity using pen and ink. The walls and the internal city will represent each of them and the surrounding landscape will show external influences.
- Ask students to think about an idea for their fort: What shape will it be? How big will it be? How strong are outside influences on you? How many gateways are there into your city? What are the ways people can connect with you? e.g. music, sport, clubs.
-Invite students to sketch out a rough plan for their city, starting with the walls and then fill in the streets and main areas in the town.
- Ask them to draw the different spaces and streets and add words and illustrations that describe what they represent. Students can draw areas that represent themselves including their personality traits, qualities, things they like or dislike, interests, hobbies and physical appearance.
- Invite them to draw their surrounding landscape and the main outside influences once students have filled in the city.
- Help students to think about external influences with the following suggestions
- Places : maybe they live near the sea, other places they have connections with, holidays, favourite places like a den in the garden
- People/ animals that are important to them: these could include family, friends, teachers, and pets.
- Big events that happened to them.
- Objects that are special to them: a piece of jewellery, a favourite toy or their hurl.
- Clubs or groups
- Ask students to go over the map drawings with pens, markers and ink once they have a rough sketch of their map.
- Remind children about the mark making techniques they explored in the previous session and that they can use these to describe the different features in their map. Remind them not to use the markers in wet ink. When they are finished, they can rub out the pencil lines.
- Explain to children that they will create a map of their own identity using pen and ink. The walls and the internal city will represent each of them and the surrounding landscape will show external influences.
- Ask students to think about an idea for their fort: What shape will it be? How big will it be? How strong are outside influences on you? How many gateways are there into your city? What are the ways people can connect with you? e.g. music, sport, clubs.
-Invite students to sketch out a rough plan for their city, starting with the walls and then fill in the streets and main areas in the town.
- Ask them to draw the different spaces and streets and add words and illustrations that describe what they represent. Students can draw areas that represent themselves including their personality traits, qualities, things they like or dislike, interests, hobbies and physical appearance.
- Invite them to draw their surrounding landscape and the main outside influences once students have filled in the city.
- Help students to think about external influences with the following suggestions
- Places : maybe they live near the sea, other places they have connections with, holidays, favourite places like a den in the garden
- People/ animals that are important to them: these could include family, friends, teachers, and pets.
- Big events that happened to them.
- Objects that are special to them: a piece of jewellery, a favourite toy or their hurl.
- Clubs or groups
- Ask students to go over the map drawings with pens, markers and ink once they have a rough sketch of their map.
- Remind children about the mark making techniques they explored in the previous session and that they can use these to describe the different features in their map. Remind them not to use the markers in wet ink. When they are finished, they can rub out the pencil lines.
