Collaborative Drawing, a bit of chat and an Installation

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I started the sessions with an introduction to myself and talked the pupils through my work and ideas. I wanted to share with the pupils the path that I had taken going back to the decisions and work I was making at GCSE to what I am doing now. .My knowledge of art as a subject was very limited at secondary school and I wanted to try and share the possibilities I had discovered through quite a winding route.

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We reflected briefly on the topic of inclusion, before taking a tour of the exhibition in the galleries. The rest of the day worked with the following activities; 

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Drawing with the frame drawing devices

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I explained the method of using the drawing frames to select what you want to record, emphasising the real benefits of the process in achieving perspective. For a more detailed description of this process hit the frame tag in the menu bar.

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Each pupil made 2-3 drawings all over the gallery space and outside. It was a really nice opportunity to chat with some of the pupils.

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Collaborative Drawing

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Back in the education room I introduced the idea of making collaborative drawings. Demonstrating the benefit of having the drawings on acetate by showing them the somewhat archaic over head projectors! The classes formed 5 groups of 6 and were set the challenge of negotiating a composition that included everyones work. They were also encouraged to play with scale by moving the projectors about.

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Each group rose to the challenge really well, some working together all on one drawing at once colouring large areas together, others took directing roles whilst friends traced outlines. The way the pupils worked with each other was really impressive... and very inclusive!

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Installation

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I was aware of pupils reverting to their friendship groups through the process of dividing into 6's and so had a final activity that I hoped would include everyone in the room and make it essential to work across the groups.

Giving the pupils balls of wool I asked them to negotiate with each other about how they could connect their drawings together across the space. Anticipating a nervous or reserved approach to this I was blown away by the results, by the time it came to leave the space it was impossible to move around the room without ducking and weaving your way through the wool. Pupils threw balls across the room, used the furniture, walls and windows as props.

It was a great way to end the session and has left me really looking forward to seeing the pupils again in their schools, where, after some discussion on what we could maybe do I'm heading towards a large scale sculpture session that combines Yves Klein with the world of WWE (wrestling).