As a parent and educator, I am passionate about the importance of the creative arts for children and adults of different needs. As a visual artist, I have developed a pedagogy based on my practice.
Through many years experience in different contexts, schools, museum workshops, personally initiated workhops and field trips, I have focused particularly on teaching drawing from observation. By this I mean, drawing from the objects and the environment around us, as distinct from drawing from imagination, photos or memory. The emphasis is on learning to see, on the development of the visual and imaginative brain which is informed all the senses, especially tactility.
I have developed a programme that focuses on different aspects of perception that develops the childrens’ understanding of what they see, away from stereotypes and narrowly symbolic thinking and towards a sense of multiple possibilities.
For example, approaches to the same subject matter may focus on : how forms interlock with space, how to identify the gesture of a subject, how to co-ordinate the sense of touch with the sense of sight.