Art Technician Insight

Hooray for the Christmas Holidays and two weeks off work! It's the last day of term for me and I've enjoyed a few quiet days this week with the art dept to myself as the Teachers and Students finished last Friday. I've been stock checking, ordering, tidying cupboards and doing a bit of scanning. Scanning in books is one of the few jobs I can do sat down as I'm normally on my feet all day, and it forces me to look through books that I wouldn't normally pick up and introduces me to new artists, so I really enjoy it.

We have an ongoing resource full of scanned images saved on the students area of the computer so that everyone can access it. We call it the Artists A-Z and it's in constant use. We know that all the images saved in there are high quality and are really easy to find. Theres even a notice up next to all the computers reminding students how to find it!

One of the books I've been scanning is a new book which arrived last week called Patchwork Folk Art by Janet Bolton. The book has lots of illustrations and with helpful practical notes. Her designs are rustic, simple, inspirational but also achievable, and use quite simple techniques. I especially like the multiple pieces with more abstract compositions because a lot of them reminded me of old fashioned puzzles and games. We are using textiles more and more each year and I think this book will be really useful especially with exam units coming up.