Wednesday 15 February 2017

IMELDA: VINTAGE DILEMMA

Reader Imelda has a vintage themed dilemma for Skye Tanberry to solve... will she be able to help? Find out in this week's DREAMCATCHER problem page post!

Imelda says:
Recently our teacher told us we would each be be doing a personal three week project, on any subject. I want to do a project that links with my hobbies of vintage, history and daydreaming... or do something based on Clara's love story from MARSHMALLOW SKYE perhaps. I've also thought of doing a 1920s project but I'm not sure whether to do something written or to make something. I can't make a decision! Any ideas?

Skye says:
What a great opportunity! I'd have loved a chance to do something like this, and it seems to have really sparked your imagination too! It depends how much time you can spend on the project, but three weeks may not be long enough to make something like a dress, for example. A written project may be simpler, but I think if it were me I'd choose to tell Clara's story in project form! You could illustrate it with drawn 'photographs' of Clara and her fiance and her traveller love, and include your versions of some of the letters she sent, mocking up envelopes with old fashioned stamps. It could be a lot of fun to do and would really stand out - and you have the story there in MARSHMALLOW SKYE to use as a template! Best of luck!

Cathy says:
What a great project - I'm loving Skye's advice, too! What is the coolest project YOU have ever done? COMMENT BELOW to tell us more!

1 comment:

  1. That is a fun project! I find that, with a bit of creativity, any project can be great fun as well as getting good marks. I've had a few instances of this. When I was in P7, we had to do a project on World War 2. I went all out. I drew a Spitfire plane against the sunset and glued the picture to the front of a folder to form the cover. There was a contents page, an introduction, various pages of information written in brightly coloured pens with illustrations and even a comic strip depicting D-Day planning (it may not seem like a comic situation but newspapers with eyeholes cut out of them are pretty funny and D-Day was shrouded in secrecy so that was how I depicted spies). It was well received but I'd had such good fun making it so that was just a bonus. In secondary school, there were more occasions like that. In S2, a substitute history teacher who probably wished she was an art teacher set a project especially for me. Inspired by how I doodled people, places and items from history in the margins of my jotter, she set us a homework project of drawing a comic strip depicting the Battle of Stirling Brig. It was way better than writing out page after page of information and as a visual learner, I still remember quite a lot of what I learned. You'd expect all the fun projects to be swept aside as soon as exams are on the horizon but I had some really good teachers. In S6, my RMPS teacher let us make posters explaining the stories and traditions behind Jewish festivals. It was meant to be a group project but he let me work alone because he knew I was more productive myself. And boy, was I! I produced a colourful poster about Hanukkah, outlining the story of the oil lamp and how the menorah signifies the miracle and explained the tradition of playing with dreidels. The whole poster was illustrated with said menorahs and dreidels and many other pieces of imagery. By the time I completed it, the other groups were still idly writing a sentence or so between chatting to their friends so I got to do the project all over again with Passover as a topic! Great fun. It's these projects that I'll remember for years to come as the essays and reports fade into obscurity.

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