This teacher CPD session is funded by Wakefield Council and is therefore only available to teachers working in the Wakefield district.

Educators across Wakefield are invited to a bright and joyful CPD session that offers innovative ways to teach students about colour. Looking beyond painting as the traditional way to explore colour in the classroom, this CPD session will demonstrate how sculpture and installation can provoke interesting discussion about how we perceive colour. Understanding how we experience colour is fundamental to any form of art-making where decisions about colour are prioritised.

Following a brief scientific introduction about how we experience colour, teachers will be invited to discover intriguing colour relationships via the pioneering colour-play collage activities in the seminal colour-theory text, Interaction of Colour (1963) by Josef Albers, one of the most influential artist-educators of the twentieth century.

We will then create experimental sculptures, collages and installations with reusable materials, and use light through coloured filters and reflection to investigate further our experience of colour. This approach connects strongly with Liz West's intention to demand a 'physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual response' to Our Colour Reflection, West's installation on display in The Chapel at YSP.

The CPD session will begin with a visit to this engaging artwork, which uses over 765 mirrors made of coloured acrylic to 'create a conversation between the viewer and the setting'. By the end of this bright and colourful session, an antidote to the diminishing daylight hours in November, teachers will feel equipped to enable their students to investigate how colour, light and our experience of being-in-the-world are all intrinsically linked.

This session will be held in The Bothy and will include a visit to see Liz West’s exhibition Our Colour Reflection in The Chapel. Refreshments will be provided, and attendees will receive a pre-visit email the week before the event with further details. Teachers are invited to extend their visit and enjoy the exhibitions at YSP after the event.