Jon Edgar artist workshop

On Saturday 6 July we held our second UBATO artist teacher workshop of the year.

The day was led by the sculptor Jon Edgar who is a British artist who uses improvisation in his practice, which tends to the figurative. His work includes large public stone carvings which are worked on location, as well as working with clay busts.

Jon’s workshops introduced three different approaches to teaching and exploring sculpture. Participants explored the ideas of reductive, additive and transformative processes to create sculpture in a variety of media, including, clay, wire, soap, plasticine and wax. Each workshop built on each other and introduced new language that can be used for future teaching.

Participants were invited to bring along examples of sculpture that their students had created in school to share best practice.

Julie Howard, UBATO lead, said: “Sculpture and 3D materials are often the area that has the least amount of focus in our art curriculums, due to factors, such as lack of time, resources, accessible materials, and teacher confidence in this area. However, we also know this way of working can really appeal to students, in a way that 2D processes won’t.

“The artist workshop day really highlighted the importance of sculpture and Jon’s approaches inspired us all to see how it can be implemented in the classroom.”

Julie’s comment was echoed by participants:

“I have been introduced to new techniques today, that will change the way I teach sculpture in the future. I have learnt some new language and terminology that will now inform my students, so they gain a better understanding of working in 3d. Thank you Jon and UBATO.”

“Thank you for another excellent UBATO day and a brilliant year of art and friendship with lots of amazing teachers.”

“Yesterday was great, as always and good to share best practice with the other teachers too.”

UBATO Membership is now open for the 2024-25 academic year – join today!