St Canice's cathedral's Summer Music Camp, 2019
In the 12th century cathedral, the children spend a week exploring the cathedral and choral music and all kinds of instruments. For the Art workshop, the children drew details of the cathedral that they saw in their mirrors, using them to notice the gothic arches and craftsmanship. They also did some 'forensic drawings' and engaged with textures of the cathedral, taking pencil rubbings of the stone carved lettering and other elements. The cathedral is a great resource for learning.
National Drawing Day 2017 with the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny
In this workshop, children and adults were invited to cover their pages with charcoal and to draw instead with an eraser. As we were on the grounds of Kilkenny Castle, it was suggested that the sky could be erased to reveal the skyline of the castle. A simple way of discovering the interlocking of positive form and negative space.
Children's Drawing Workshops, Paris, 2008- 2014
On school holiday periods in France where we lived, I gave drawing workshops over several days to children of different ages. These small groups provided me with opportunities to observe how the children responded to the different activities.
"We learn drawing because it is important and it is fun. We learn drawing because creative people use drawing to figure out their innovative ideas. We learn drawing because it can be an important means of artistic expression. We learn drawing because it helps our powers of observation and being a good observer is an important way to learn. Learning how to learn is probably the most important reason to learn to draw. " Marvin Bartelet
Ribbon or mummy drawings
« Draw what you see, not what you think » This drawing game is designed to encourage a move away from drawing figures symbolically with contours and toward observational drawing with a feeling for volume. It involves wrapping the model horizontally in brightly coloured ribbon leaving spaces between each turn of the ribbon. The children then only draw the lines of ribbon that they see. They judge the distances and angles between the strips of ribbon. When they have drawn all the lines they see, they then, cut around the figure. It looks an Egyptian mummy in the model’s pose. This is particularly effective when the pose includes foreshortening.
Drawing Fish in Movement
The Aquarium is a great subject for movement. The children first drew with blinders (pieces of card) on their pencils and so they followed the movement of the fish with their hands but they couldn’t see their drawings. Afterwards they were asked to look at the drawing and place eyes when they thought they should go. In the 2nd exercice they drew the movements of the fish with a putty rubber on a dark charcoal ground. They could add charcoal to the darker bits and erase the lighter bits with the rubber, so it was also a light study.
Drawing with Negative Space
Children took turns posing with a stretcher that framed their pose. The drawings were done on paper prepared with graphite that made a rectangle roughly in ratio to the stretcher. Instead of using a pencil, the children drew with rubbers substracting the shapes of the white spaces between the perimeter of the stretcher and the figure. When all the spaces are removed the figure is revealed. This helps them find the right proportions and helps them see that the spaces that surround the figure are also part of the drawing.
They then made Faces and Vases drawings where they saw how space and objects or figures share contours. They love these!
They then made Faces and Vases drawings where they saw how space and objects or figures share contours. They love these!
Faces and Vases
gardens and walking drawings
Drawing outside is always great with children (in small groups!), Indoors, the childen prepared a long rectangular page, by painting it loosely with pale watercolours. We looked at the paintings of Raoul Dufy and Bonnard. When they were dry, they folded the sheet into squares. We then went out in the park with folding stools and they were invited to stop where they wished to draw something that interested them. They were encouraged to draw textures and movement more than contours. The end result was a record of the views of their walk. Drawing on loosely pre-coloured surfaces gave a fluidity to the movement.