PLANTOGRAPH
This workshop was part of a larger programme of public engagement projects and exhibition, BY LEAVES WE LIVE, devised and facilitated for pupils from Perth Primary Schools.
Located on the banks of the River Tay, pupils created personal and collaborative works of art in a wide variety of media in an ‘open-air studio’, in response to the public art installation, MEANDER, by Elizabeth Ogilvie and Rob Page sited in Perth’s City Centre.
Following the Project, we exhibited the pupils’ work at Perth’s Civic Hall.
~
Pupils had the chance to explore process art using a huge PLANTOGRAPH, a device created for the purpose of enlarging drawings of plants. (The first ‘pantograph’ was invented and built by Christoph Scheiner in 1603, with the purpose or scaling up diagrams).
We set out a large piece of paper and our constructed plantograph alongside the River Tay and got to work...
Our drawing machine - with two parallel, adjustable arms with pens attached - enabled an exact duplication of the pupils’ drawings to be produced. Drawings could be enlarged or reduced depending on which mechanical drawing arm they chose to use.
Unusual anamorphic duplicates were also created by adjusting the arms.
Our plantograph encouraged the pupils to observe closely and to create unusual depictions of plants in a quirky and playful manner.
