The Gusserane Art Intervention: Week 6

This week with the pupils of Gusserane, the lesson ended up following a rather catchy theme of Foxes and Boxes. Els brought in her own stuffed fox, and for our session today it was to become a part of the still life drawing composition. The idea behind it was to further teach the children about drawing perspective but also seeing their approach to scale and shape. The fox created quite a stir initially with both of the groups, especially when Els told her story of how she appropriated the fox after it having killed all of her chickens and threatening her ducks. None were too phazed by the prospect of it once having been alive, if anything lots of the children still were excited to touch it before they had to leave.

Another new challenge the children faced was using charcoal for their drawings and discovering it's qualities compared to what they are used to i.e. pencil. The charcoal we gave the children was very delicate and could easily be broken, so with the younger group it was important to show them how to use it properly and be aware of how messy it is compared to graphite pencils they would normally use and be likely to press down with. With the younger group in the morning session, Els felt that launching them directly on to the still life would be too much to start with and so she provided them with some simple fox picture exercises.

The pupils had to copy the shape and shading of the first fox picture by following the guides much like in previous exercises. Some improved greatly in paying more attention to each step and focusing on how they were building up the picture. The charcoal, being dusty and dirty, caused a lot of black smudges to appear on the pupil's drawings as it got all over their hands without them realising. Els had to take a moment to show them the different techniques they could employ to use the charcoal effectively and for them to clean their hands if necessary. The second compilation of foxes was a little more simplistic, showing a variation of gestural drawings for the children to try on their own without a guide. This was to warm them up to looking at the formalities of the fox and attempting it in their own way and for us to see their observation of it's shapes and forms before they moved on to a rendition of the still life.

With the still life, the pupils were excited to draw the fox, some even asking if they could turn it around so they could draw it's face. This part of the session proved the most difficult for the majority of the group as it was the first time they were expected to draw something in front of them which is quite different to copying an image. Many couldn't grasp the sizes, and one could see by looking at their drawings that they were all fixated on the fox by drawing it really large compared to the boxes that surrounded it. However a few did produce very clear and interesting work, especially with their use of smudging the charcoal to create shading in particular places which was important to encourage their perspective techniques. Overall the session ran smoothly despite a few hiccups with charcoal going missing and pupils demanding that they get to draw the fox's face, yet we find that with more challenges each week and disciplining them more closely in drawing, their creativity is really beginning to show through.

The older group were thrown straight into the deep end with their first proper life drawing lesson, conducted very much like I would have had in college. Els started off with showing them some images on the projector of life drawing examples, the use of shadows on certain shapes etc. The group were eager to start and taken aback when they discovered it was a time limited exercse. They first had to do four one minute drawings, and with each one they had to move to the next table to get a different aspect of the composition to draw, we then doubled the time on the second round.

These quick drawing exercises aimed not provide results but more so to encourage them to focus, concentrate and try and draw as much as they could. The group as a whole performed remarkably well with this exercise, at first struggling with the time pressure but then quickly embracing it and moving faster and more eloquently with the charcoal (there was a lot less mess with this group). They also found it fun to move from place to place, everybody getting a chance to draw the fox's face which was the most exciting for them. The first batch of drawings went well and at the end we asked them to look at their first drawing compared to their last one and compare the two to see the differences. The next exercise we gave them four minutes each on two drawings, the extended time gave them the chance to really persevere and get the composition as complete as possible which many of them succeeded with, this gave us a chance to encourage them to incorporate more shading with the time they had left.

A number of them did very well with drawing correct perspective on the boxes, it was the size of and distance between the objects that was an issue. Certain objects appearing far too small and others far to big and the wrong shape, with the fox taking over the picture in a lot of them. Once again objects that overlap not quite on top of one another and appearing two dimensional in one place and three dimensional in another. Els and I discussed that teaching them the means of judging spacial differences would be an important next step to move on to so as to improve their drawing skills. After the four minute drawings we increased the time again except we told them they were going to get five minutes when they were actually going to have seven. This was to test them a little and see how many could produce a drawing to their own satisfactory completion which a large amount did, Keeping in mind that this was their first intensive drawing session, Els and I felt that the group advanced quite well with what we have been teaching them so far, although they still have quite a bit to learn yet, we are beginning to consider how we are going to approach work for the exhibition with them and look forward to what they will acheive.