Projects

Here is where you will find the work I have facilitated in collaborative projects with schools, youth groups and multi-disciplinary exhibitions within the wider community.

BLAST RESIDENCY, HOLY FAMILY SECONDARY SCHOOL, NEWBRIDGE, 2025

My BLAST residency with 5th year students, which launched in January 2025, began with an exploration of the methods and materials central to my creative practice, giving students insight into new techniques and processes. Through hands-on activities, we explored layering materials, collage techniques, and texture creation using various mediums. We then focused on the work of Canadian contemporary artist Julie Liger-Belair, known for her playful assemblages combining vintage imagery into innovative compositions. Students were captivated by the potential to reimagine and recontextualize narratives, working with stencils, painted paper, and found images to create their own assemblage pieces. For the final weeks of our BLAST project, students chose to create collaborative large-scale works inspired by artists including Irish painters Louis le Brocquy and Michael Craig-Martin, Austrian symbolist Gustav Klimt, and Keith Haring. This collaborative approach fostered essential communication and negotiation skills as students shared ideas, worked through creative challenges together, and learned from each other's techniques and perspectives, creating a rich peer learning environment that enhanced both their artistic development and teamwork abilities. The final pieces were displayed in the hallways and student recreation hall of the school.

Artist in Schools Residency - Creative Exploration - Inspired by Nature, Ballyshannon NS, May - June 2025

This arts residency at Ballyshannon NS was facilitated through the KCC Arts in Education Residency Bursary Award. During the preliminary planning phase, my teaching partner and I identified the school's sensory garden and surrounding rural environment as rich resources for creative inquiry and artistic exploration.

Our primary objective was to foster students' engagement with the school's outdoor spaces while incorporating natural materials into both outdoor and classroom-based learning activities. Following comprehensive planning sessions with teaching staff and participating students, the residency commenced with 5th and 6th class (ages 11-13yrs). Initial activities focused on creating bespoke mark-making tools as an introduction to drawing techniques, progressing to botanical plaster casting. This tactile experience proved highly successful, with students demonstrating remarkable engagement as they discovered the intricate detail captured in their botanical impressions.

The 4th class (ages 10-11yrs) engaged with hands-on monoprinting processes, working with both paper and fabric using foraged natural materials. This activity enhanced students' observational skills, encouraging detailed examination of the diverse shapes, textures, and patterns present in natural forms. Students subsequently developed their fabric prints through basic stitching techniques, integrating textile arts into the creative process. We had lots of fun following the contours of our leaves with stitches and learning how to thread our needles!

With 2nd and 3rd class (ages 7-9yrs), we began with a guided nature walk and plein air drawing exercises. Following outdoor sketching sessions, the children carefully collected wildflowers, herbs, and budding branches, creating observational drawings using chalk pastels and pencils. This phase emphasised botanical observation skills, we spent time examining petal counts, leaf arrangements, and structural variations. Our project culminated in collaborative large-scale painting activities using a variety of application tools, (great messy fun!) followed by collage work informed by their preliminary drawings. The children demonstrated exceptional enthusiasm for the tactile elements of collage-making, producing work of remarkable quality.

The natural resources available at Ballyshannon NS, particularly the sensory garden, provided an exceptional foundation for integrating environmental elements into the creative curriculum throughout this residency program. 

TAP+ Project - Daingean National School, April - May 2024

(TAP+ (Teacher Artist Partnership+) is a Department of Education-approved professional development course for teachers, artists and creative practitioners to work in partnership with children in primary and special schools. The programme supports and enhances arts education in primary and special schools, to develop the creative potential and voice of every child.)

Working in partnership with the teacher and children in 3rd class in Daingean, we began our project with some outdoor explorations and mark making activities. The local waterways provided a great source of inspiration for the children’s initial work. Our project evolved to working on Egypt and the Nile incorporating curricular integration into the planning. The class made their own version of papyrus paper and created scrolls with images inspired by ancient Egyptian art. The project concluded with an exhibition of the children’s work in the school hall.

TAP+ Project - Gaelscoil Chill Dara, May 2024

Exploring the theme of ‘An t-earrach’ (Spring), this was a mixed media project with the junior infant class (ages 4 - 6). During this project with students from the Gaelscoil Chill Dara, the children, teacher and I explored the natural environment outside the classroom and created some drawings of what we discovered. Then, using paint, collage, chalk and pencils, we participated in a variety of mixed media art activities including creating individual books about Spring and a large-scale collaborative spring flower collage.

BRIGID 1500 Creative Project - Kildare Educate Together National School and Ballshannon NS, Kildare 2023 - 2024

Brigid 1500 Brigid 1500 is a comprehensive program aimed at celebrating and commemorating the life and legacy of St. Brigid.

With the assistance of a grant grant awarded by Kildare County Council Arts Service, Liza undertook a project with two Kildare schools. Working with different age groups, Liza facilitated a multi-disciplinary creative project inspired by Brigid of Kildare. The children worked in a variety of mediums including clay, textiles, collage and print. The project culminated in the students’ work being included in ‘Unravelling an Icon’, a curated exhibition with SULT Artists Collective. Visited by thousands during Brigid 1500 celebrations in February 2024, the exhibition featured work by Irish and International artists, displayed in various venues in Kildare Town.