Finsbury Five Schools Jigsaw Project 2003
Sponsored by CEA@Islington and EC1 New Deal for Communities
Five primary schools participated: St Lukes, Hugh Myddleton, Prior Weston, Moorfields and Morelands.

The pupils drew their environment, then they transferred their drawings to large precut jigsaw pieces, finally they painted their image in bright acrylic paints. During the project, which ran for four weeks, they worked on these web pages. The jigsaw can be made up in different ways to present an ever changing mural.






painting plywood jigsaw pieces with primer
The pupils who took part
Roll your mouse over a picture to find out more about each pupils' drawing, to see larger images of their art and to read, in their own words, what they think and feel about the workshops. Scroll down a little if you can't see all the info that pops up! (NB if you are using Safari 2.0 you may find that the popups don't work properly... if so, please click here to view an alternative page. Other browsers and more recent versions of Safari should be fine.)


Amy I have drawn a tree with a gate, buildings and flowers. I drew it because I think trees and flowers are beautiful. things. The thing that I like the most in my picture are the buildings in the background. I liked drawing on the jigsaw piece. I learnt how to mix colours and how to use a paint brush properly. I also learnt how to scratch my work with the back of my paintbrush. I most enjoyed mixing colours and drawing the picture. I liked to take photographs and put them on the computer for up loading to the website later.

Dilan This is a wooden carved post built by a friend called Andy (He also taught us how to make a sunflower out of bamboo) We chose a piece of sculpture in our ecology garden and it was the only piece I could see clearly. It’s a great feeling to know that you’ve been selected for a brilliant thing. It feels weird to be drawing on pieces of wood when you’ve got used to paper. My favourite artist is Seurat. My favourite type of drawing is with dots and big, bright colour. I love art and have been into it since I was little. Art makes me feel alive when I'm making or painting something alone. Silence makes me feel lonely so I play some music for myself. When I draw out of my imagination I don't usually know what I'm doing so I sometimes get my sister to help and she's good at art as well.

Desea I have drawn a variety of different shapes of buildings all close together with shadings. I drew it because I liked the shading that the sun was making and the effects that the buildings had. I felt scared and shy about coming to the project on the first day but I got used to the environment and felt OK. I feel excellent about the jigsaw pieces. Now that I have finished my picture it fits perfectly well with the jigsaw piece and everything looks wonderful. Maud is very impressed with it so am I. I enjoyed working here with these people they are wonderful and I am hoping I will see them again.

Billy I drew a roof with posts holding it up. I drew it because it its complicated. It was fun today. The jigsaw will look like one big garden and it will look nice and have a lot of colour in it. I painted the grass dark green. The red is part of the classroom.

Anil I have drawn a picture of my school’s office. I drew it because I had a good view from it. Doing this project is fun and exciting because I drew pictures and met new people. I think the project was a good idea and I think the jigsaw will look beautiful at the end.


Khaled I have drawn a building and a big roof that has houses behind it. I drew it because it is really nice and because it has bricks. I think the jigsaw pieces are really good because they make you want to know what it is.

John I have drawn a flower pot. It is fun and exciting coming to the project today, I never thought it would be like this. I think the jigsaw pieces will be fun for drawing my picture. I have never done anything on wood before.'

JJ My picture is about a building and a school fence. I have enjoyed everything that what we have learnt. When I first saw the web page I was amazed because I was on the Internet for once. My mum went on the web page and printed my picture.

Juan My picture is about a garden. I like the tail of the fence. I like the shape of window. I enjoy coming here because I like drawing with professional artists.

Kevin My picture is about a monument in a graveyard near our school. I drew this picture because it was the most simple thing in the graveyard I found it difficult to get the same colour after I have ran out of that colour. I found it easy to copy and draw the picture on to the piece of puzzle that we were given.


Linda My drawing is a graveyard and I drew a grave with a fence. I liked putting my picture onto a puzzle. I learnt how to mix colours properly, I used yellow and blue to make green. I also learnt how to scratch through paint with the back of the paint brush. I enjoyed painting and mixing. I don't know how I feel about it. I enjoyed going on the computer.

Kristian I have drawn my classroom. I haven’t done anything on wood before. I've learnt that art is very difficult to do and it takes a lot of time to get it perfect. I think this project is very exciting because I learnt a lot about art.

Louisa This picture is from my school ecology garden. It shows pieces of wood that are connected with lots of texture on them. I like this after school club because you get to meet other people from other schools. We got to paint on a wooden jigsaw piece, that's what I liked most!

Yohan This is my school playground with snow and a lot of stone, so I am drawing my school. Before I did the drawing, we made the snowman. I like art because it is funny and I like Van Gogh.

Laura My drawing is of a part of the graveyard next to our school. First I drew a patch of flowers and I had lots of space left so I drew the fence behind. I enjoyed most when I traced my drawing on to thin paper. After the first day at Artyface I went home. I tried to get up the site. When I did nothing was there. I thought that it was the wrong site so I tried different sites. The next week I found the site but it was half done and it took me ages to get it up. When we found the site my mum sent the web address to most of my family. The last week we got our certificates so I could go straight to the site. I showed my mum, my sister and my nan. They were all amazed.


Tania I did this drawing in the playground. I like the trees in front of the flat. I like painting trees, because it was easy. I made up the brown by using blue, red and yellow.

Reid I have drawn the Barbican. I drew because it is famous. I had to draw carefully. I think that my jigsaw piece is good and it has got a lot of colour in it. I mixed the colour together and I learnt it makes different colours. I learnt how to paint better. It is fun. It's like an art lesson it's my second favorite subject and it is good to learn. You get taught things that you don't know. I found it fun to use a digital camera. We have made an internet page and I will look at it at school on the school computers.

Tasnima I have drawn a building which has loads of windows and shops at the bottom. I drew it because it was simple and easy to draw. I also drew it because it looked interesting. It is great coming here, I felt a bit shy and scared because I did not know anyone. I feel great about the jigsaw pieces because my piece is going to be there, everyones will be there. It is going to look great and putting pictures on the computer will be good because everyone will see it. Now I've finished it, I'm very proud of it. I think everyones pictures looks very cool. They are all very different. Well, I'm happy, I hope you see the jigsaw puzzle and love it. I HOPE ONE DAY YOU WILL BE HERE AT THE GIFTED AND TALENTED PROJECT BEST OF LUCK TAS X X X

Xenia This is a picture of me and my drawing of the barbican. I drew this building because I like the shape. I found it challenging not to put fine detail on the first day. I also enjoyed mixing the colours and making new ones.

Alexandria I have drawn a building in the Barbican. I drew this building because i liked the way it curved. I enjoy this project because I like art and putting my picture onto a piece of jigsaw is unusual.


Manu My drawing is of the two sculptures in the barbican and the area around them. I liked coming here to learn more things about art because it is my second favorite subject in school. I didn't enjoy coming here because it means that I have to miss games at school. What I learnt while I worked here was how to use different types of paint and what colours contrast well and how to make them.
The technology aspect
New Finsbury New Deal sponsored the part of the project that involved the pupils working on a lap top computer to build a web site. We discussed how web sites are viewed around the world, from their home computer and at their school and how the internet helps to link families, friends and schools around the world.

The young artists used a digital camera to take pictures of each other. Using these pictures, they collated their individual pages by seeing how you imported the image into the computer, placing the image on their individual page, making a link from a thumbnail image on a different page to their page, finally cutting and pasting or typing in text, which they then formatted to the site style.
In their own words...
the pupils typed directly into a web design package to tell us what they had done.
Alexandria 'The first thing we did is sat down in a big circle.'
Amy 'Then we showed everyone our pictures.'
Reid 'Then we looked at the wooden jigsaw.'
Laura 'We took a piece of the jigsaw and wrote our name on the back.'
JJ 'We turned the jigsaw piece the right way by putting the red dot lower left.'
Desara 'Some people had difficulty finding the red dot but then we got it at the end.'
Tasnima 'We primed the wooden jigsaw pieces with special paint.'
Anil 'We fitted our pictures onto the jigsaw shape.'
Khaled 'We had to mix colours and understand about warm, cold, dark and light.'
Louisa 'We got our pictures and drew the main bits onto the jigsaw piece.'
Juan 'We tried to fill up the gaps and not leave white space.'
Farhaana 'We learned about different ways of painting such as; dabbing, stroking, and scratching paint.'
Xenia 'Cathrine told us that we didn't need to use black, this is because nothing is truly black.'
Billy 'We had some paint and we mixed it with some other paint.'
Dilan 'We looked at our pictures and added detail to the painting.'
Building the web pages
Linda 'We took pictures of each other using a digital camera.'
Yo-han 'We got the picture into our webpage.'
Kristian 'First I clicked on the little picture with the "finger mouse" and linked it to my web page.'
Tania 'I linked it by using the "drag and drop.'
Manu 'I made a web page and then made the link to it so other people could see it any time.'
Kevin 'Some of us had to get our pictures blown up because they were a bit too small.'