Painting Autumn

This week, we're focusing on autumn. We started by going around the group and sharing our favourite things about autumn - from pumpkin spice lattes to pretty colours in the leaves.

Next, we imagined we were going to describe autumn to someone who had never experienced a British autumn before

- but to make it even trickier, the following words were BANNED from the description - so the writers had to be sneaky and use synonyms/similes/metaphors/imagery to get their points across...BANNED WORDS: orange, brown, cold, falling, frost

Here is Safir's beautiful description:

This is the type of year when the leaves start to descend out of trees, turning into a crispy green arrow head. the days start to shorten as the night sky starts top dominate. the animals start to stack their food for the winter months, some also hibernating. At this point you start to feel a subtle breeze and a chill at your hands and toes.

Next, we looked at paintings of the autumn and chose our favourites (and why) from the following:

1 – Autumn Landscape with Four Trees – Van Gogh

2 – Autumn Leaves by Yokoyama Taikan 1931

3 – Autumn on the Seine at Argenteuil – Claude Monet

4 - Autumn in Bavaria – Wassily Kandinsky

Interestingly, the whole group chose the Monet painting! Next, we looked more closely at this painting and what we noticed in the colours, textures, shapes, patterns, atmosphere.

Next, the writers had to imagine they/a character are at an art gallery looking at this painting – and then they fall into the painting – what would it be like to exist inside the painting?

Here are some pieces by Safir and Neelesh:

Safir:

woooooooooooooooooooosh

Where was I? Wasn't I just looking at this painting? Well I'm not complaining, it looks really peaceful, a bit chilly though. I walked in a random direction of trees which looked like torches, hoping i'd find somewhere I could rest. I stopped and listened. There was a stream somewhere. I decided to go down to it.

I walked to the edge, there were 4 boats, coloured like the leaves which had fallen into the ripples in the stream. I hopped onboard. Looking forward, I saw the other side which seemed like an entirely different planet. The leaves had not turned red but an icy blue. frost had covered the grass and bushes and the mud had stiffened. It was getting late, I checked my watch. It was only 5pm. The sun started to set as the sky turned a soothing purple. little rays of the sun shimmered through the gaps from the trees like spotlights.

I could see silhouettes of long spiked buildings. They seemed like ancient cathedrals. I rowed forward.

Neelesh:

I don't know how I fell into the art that I was about to buy. This feeling is like Alice In The Wonderland but this isn't a dream. This IS serious! Even though this has spectacular scenaries, soothing atmosphere, I don't like it. This is because I want to just go home and play games on my PS5 even though I am 25 years old.

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Painting Autumn