Daylight Light Painting

Light painting (also called light writing, light graffiti and light art) is long-exposure photography using lights to create patterns and shapes, and add effects into the photo not there in real life. Light painting does not impact physically on objects or buildings since the light is only captured on camera. The process usually takes place at night or in very dark environments, but this can create access difficulties.

Daylight Light Painting evolved as a response, allowing me to work in daylight and creating a safer, more user-friendly approach , allowing participants to focus on their creativity. While we need to be able to subdue the lighting, the workspace does not need to be blacked out – think of an overcast or grey rainy day as being the light level to emulate.

The process has been used with different age groups (including adults) and with different learning aims (or none at all - just for the fun of it).  There are additional cross-curricular links as well as "making" opportunities to develop custom tools. The project examples below show some outcomes, and many more are possible. If you are interested in developing a workshop with me using this technique, just drop me a line via the form here.

Bow Arts cross-school partnerships - 2018

This involved leading two cross-school partnerships focusing on SEND and digital engagement. Each partnership involves one mainstream school and one specialist SEND school, working to design and make light tools, and to work collaboratively on creating the light painting. This project (summer/autumn terms 2018) involved young people with a range of physical and learning access requirements, involving Key Stage 2 and 3 students.

"The project was fantastic and I’m pleased I was able to observe the results of all your and the students hard work". 
(Partnership 1)

"Thanks again for the effort that you put into this project. I think it was a real success and the images that we have of the children's art are proof! ...feedback from all of the children and adults who attended the exhibition was extremely positive and will leave a lasting impact of collaboration between the schools." (Partnership 2)

Tate Modern - 2018

Shape was at Tate Exchange 1-4 March 2018, running a diverse programme entitled Ghosts In The Machine. Invited to participate in this event, I devised two linked workshop approaches, entitled "Object-Orientation" with the aim of sharing and showcasing the resultant works. ‘Orientation’ uses light painting techniques adapted for daylight working, to capture individual movement and gesture. Movement can involve the whole body or one finger; it is the individuality that is the focus rather than scale. For this event I worked with artist Walter Reid, creating and exploring new light tools for participants to use. You can see more about this project here

Art/Science programme; Northwick Primary - 2017

I was invited to develop a cross-curricular art/science day for Northwick, working with student groups. The theme for the workshops was 'Light" which made light painting a perfect project. Students learned in creative ways about the science of light, made their own simple torches and then experimented with painting. A separate CPD session for staff enabled them to consolidate learning across the school. Following this event,  Northwick developed outcomes enabling them to achieve a Gold level Primary Science Quality Mark.

"A large part of our evidence required us to demonstrate that science is cross-curricular, fun, practical and engages the children - your sessions, and the follow-up work that we were able to do using our new skills, provided excellent evidence for all of these areas and other schools were very interested in the techniques and activities that you used. Thanks again for helping make our science days such a success!"

Library Fest, 2015

The technique was initially developed for work with deaf young people, but proved so successful I began rolling it out for other  - in this case for 6 drop-in workshops across West Berkshire for Library Fest 15, working with over 100 participants to achieve Light Graffiti imagery on some very sunny days.

NDCS workshops 2014-15

Daylight light painting was initially developed for work with deaf young people, and I was invited to work on several NDCS projects, including "Helping Hands" workshops (an in-school buddy/mentoring programme), plus residential art activity weekends. This involved work with both mixed age and ability groups across a wide range of settings.

"Mega thanks for another superbly delivered workshop...Some more positive feedback for you, one of the students at the Lincoln workshop has gone on to pick Media as one of his GSCE options this year and he said it was because of what you did."