Future Artists Nottingham: WEEK 1 : DRAWING

Tuesday 26th February '13

First workshop for FUTURE ARTISTS NOTTINGHAM

On Tuesday we went to the school with our materials with the aim to change the way these Year 10 GCSE ART students felt about DRAWING.

draw·ing

Noun

1. 1. A picture or diagram made with a pencil, pen, or crayon rather than paint, esp. one drawn in monochrome.

2. 2. The art or skill or making such pictures or diagrams.

In this definition there is no mention of accuracy or detail or tone; all the techniques that are taught at school. Drawing is mark making and we wanted to remind the pupils of that, by working through a number of exercises with them.

The students are currently studying for their GCSE in art, with a project on Natural Forms. A classic School project, one full of possibilities that DOESN’T have to be boring! So keeping this in mind we wanted the students to draw from still life objects that (no doubt) they’d drawn before as beautiful detailed studies, but because we wanted them to rethink how they saw drawing, we made them do it in a quick continuous line drawing.

When we ask the pupils how they felt about that method of drawing, a lot of them initially really didn’t enjoy it, feeling completely out of their comfort zone; not being able to take their time with the drawing how they were used to. But after a number of goes (most of them) started to enjoy it!

The second activity was a blind drawing where the girls could only look at the object, not at the paper, so being ‘blind’ to what they’re drawing. This activity produced some interesting results.

looking very intently at their objects!

The final quick activity that we did with the girls was a line drawing in charcoal. Drawing in charcoal is a bit of an art, while it may be aesthetically beautiful, it’s quite hard a substance to manipulate without it going everywhere. But because we were allowing the girls to look at both the object and the paper and it didn’t have to be continuous, they were a little more comfortable and despite the time limit produced some brilliant drawings.

The last activity we did with the pupils was a collaborative drawing, where we had given each of them a small piece of a Karl Blossfeltd botanical drawing.