As many of you will already know, the Museum has been celebrating the centenary of WWI this year through a variety of ways. We are hosting an exhibition later this year to commemorate the Wakatipu war effort during WWI, and we have also made available extension art workshops which focus on the theme of camouflage.

Alexandra Primary School, Garston Primary School, Arrowtown Primary School, and now Remarkables Primary School have all worked with myself at the museum to create some fantastic WWI inspired art. This morning, 10 students from Remarkables Primary school created some amazing pieces of camouflage art. Other workshops have usually been inspired by animal camouflage and army camouflage prints. But today these students were inspired by DAZZLE camouflage!

During WWI, the Allies (Britain, France, and Russia) also used Dazzle camouflage that was very easy to spot! They realized it was very difficult to disguise large fleets of their ships out at sea. No matter what colours they used, the ships were always easily sighted. Starting with Britain, the Allies decided to paint black and white patterns all over their ships instead! These patterns drew attention to their ships, because the colours were so bold and the straight lines that were used were so obvious. But these patterns covered the ships completely and made it difficult for enemy submarines to figure out how large the ship truly was, and where exactly to target enemy fire at the ships!

This camouflage was not used to hide these ships, it was used to confuse the enemy! This type of camouflage became known as "Dazzle" camouflage.

Our inspiration for our artworks also came from three VERY different artists:

• Desiree Palmen is a Dutch artist who paints peoples clothes to help them blend into the city, which she then takes photos of.
• Andy Warhol liked the idea of how camouflage hides things, but when he created his camouflage prints he painted them in bright colours so that two opposite ideas of hiding and being easily seen were combined.
• Reuben Paterson is a kiwi artist who likes to incorporate glitter into his artworks of kowhaiwhai patterns.

The works these students created were AMAZING! I was so impressed by the high quality of the pieces of art - I can't wait to run another workshop!
What did you enjoy about the Art workshop?

What was something new you learned at the workshop?

How are you going to display your pieces of art at home??

Answer my questions and comment about your visit below!