project info.

The project began with a visit to the Gallery; pupils and teachers worked through a ‘guidebook’.

The guidebook included tasks and questions; design a tattoo with a secret message, top ten artworks, draw what is in your pockets, listen to what people are saying, write about an imagined future.

During the visit pupils also mapped their lives and recorded what they would like to get out of the project. Three main themes emerged; gain a useful skill, become more confident, find inspiration.

The first school based session became a set of tasks, to see where students were with their art skills; drawing from life, painting, collage, drawing to music. Further discussions about skills and our aims for the project revealed we all wanted to improve one of the most fundamental art making skills, drawing from life.

We looked at David Hockney’s book Secret Knowledge and spoke about Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the right side of the brain – and we began to re-learn how to draw. 

Using flat glass plates we drew what we could see – directly onto the glass.

With one eye shut, holding our heads very still we started to ‘find’ our skill. Drawing our hands, then objects on our desk, then, by placing our glass in a viewing stand, we started to draw our surroundings.

As students and I became used to drawing directly from life, the more confident stopped ‘tracing’ what we could see and started noting where the edges of objects were, moving our viewing screens to one side and, as David Hockney would put it, started ‘eyeballing’ what we could see, drawing directly from life.

Students were keen to add colour to their works so we looked at the work of John
Baldessari. We discussed what they wanted to say with their work – what would be the message?

What you can see in the Gallery is not a final piece but a record of the process we worked through together. Our viewing frames, turned on their sides are more like a group of
pauses , holding collections of drawings, quotes, learning and mistakes.

We will all eventually get our glass plates and viewing frame back and, in the future,
reuse our skills to capture the world around us.

Jack Brown ( Lead Artist )