DRAWING INSPIRATION AWARDS

Seeing Moore at Kew, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

Organiser: Susan Allan, head of learning, Wakehurst Place
Supported by The Henry Moore Foundation

            The education teams of Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place (Kew’s Country Garden) and lead artist Steven Follen combined their previous Big Draw experience in a programme revealing Henry Moore’s inspiration from nature, evident in the Kew exhibition of his sculptures.  Ten workshops led by artists and scientists engaged 6000 visitors in visual exploration.  Microscopic observation of seedsled to the creation of large charcoal drawings in From Nature to Sculpture; the intricate forms and surface patterns of cacti were the starting point for 3-D architectural constructions; the arum plant family inspired a frieze of huge black silhouettes; participants in See More sketched dissected flowers and fruits and in Going Underground they depicted root systems.
        Sheep often featured in Moore’s sketches, and are important conservation grazers, so a flock was made from willow and their meadow patterned with organic materials.  The Quest for Endangered Species sent participants to research plant characteristics.  The resulting drawings on coloured squares – planted out on long stems – created a changing landscape.

Diversity of Drawing, The National Gallery in partnership with The Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art

Organiser: Karly Allen, adult learning officer
            An ambitious month-long education programme focusing on drawing culminated in Day to Draw: eight hours of intensive drawing activity. Over 1200 visitors listened to talks on drawing and took part in workshops led by Ruskin School tutors. Sarah Simblet, author of The Drawing Book, was closely involved in the programme and used The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by the Pollaiuolo Brothers as inspiration for her session on anatomy. For the first time in the Gallery’s history, a life model posed directly in front of the paintings (and alongside a skeleton) – creating a unique environment for drawing. Other highlights of the day included a sell-out talk by Campaign for Drawing patron Gerald Scarfe.

Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Award Winners

The Big Draw @Brighton, University of Brighton

Organiser: Pauline Ridley, visual practices co-ordinator, Learn Higher Centre of Excellence in Teaching & Learning

The Big Draw @ Brighton programme, sponsored by the Learn Higher Centre of Excellence in Teaching & Learning, celebrated drawing as a tool for learning and research in higher education. Staff and students across the university's five campuses, in such subjects as engineering, health, education, sociology, art and architecture, were encouraged to rediscover drawing and explore its role in developing observation, communication and research skills. Visiting artists ran drawing workshops and over 1000 students received specially commissioned ‘Drawing a Day’ giant folding sheets to use for projects, planning and mind-mapping.

The Big Draw Crawley, Crawley Borough Council

Past, Present, Future and Shape the Future Competition, St George’s Church of England Primary School, Worcester

Organiser: Claire Horáček, artist/teacher, Steve Mills, head teacher, Helen Zihni, teacher
Supported by the Extended Schools Programme

The school held a Drawing Festival in the first half of autumn term.  Children and teachers had illustrated their summer holidays on postcards, prompting discussion and larger drawings.  Families contributed pictures of their homes for a collage of architecture from many periods and for an afternoon each week the pupils created historically themed artworks.  Illustrator Petr Horáček ran an after-school art club for children and parents to make concertina picture books.

After an inspiring visit by Tony de Saulles, renowned Horrible Science illustrator, the children developed sustainable designs for the St. George’s Centre (the new school hall) as part of a Shape the Future competition, supported by the Pump House Environment Centre and the school’s Imagineering Club, Brownies, Guides and the Mothers’ Union took part in related workshops. An afternoon of teacher/parent meetings celebrated the Creative Learning programme: parents toured the extensive exhibition while children continued exploring drawing indoors and out.  The Festival demonstrated drawing’s value as an inclusive tool for cross-curricular learning, and established a new Art Club.

Window Shopping, City of York Council, Arts and Culture with Arts Action

Organisers: Portia Simpson, arts & festivals officer and Vanessa Langford, community arts officer
Supported by Hungate York Regeneration Ltd
        

York’s community arts team specialises in providing opportunities for people with limited access to the arts. They encouraged over 1500 participants to get drawing, using the theme ‘window shopping’ as inspiration. In addition to four Saturday workshops at shopping centres and heritage sites, six artists worked with community groups to produce painted boards on subjects including fashion, furnishings, toys, sports, sweets and junk.

DemoGraphics, West Walls Studios

Organiser: Paul Taylor, Sue Stockwell and Pui Lee
Supported by the University of Cumbria

             For the fourth year, West Walls artists ran drawing events in the city centre, connecting with the fabric of Carlisle life.  Prompted by the mostly overlooked Local Democracy Week, their 2007 manifesto celebrated democracy, involving local people in debate about Carlisle’s redevelopment and cultural strategy.  Painted suits and party rosettes made it hard to overlook the mythical Carlisle Utopia Party – ‘putting the arty back into party politics’. Beyond the fun – making paper chains from life-size self-portraits and constructing cardboard cities – was the serious challenge of finding solutions for some of Carlisle’s problem areas. Ideas for making the Civic Centre more lovable included turning it into a Snakes & Ladders board, giant aquarium, or a fell with real waterfall. A Think Tank displayed participants’ proposals on fish cut-outs, which could be reeled in for debate with magnetic rods. 

             Choosing contentious issues ensured press interest, while the celebratory mood encouraged creative ideas.  Indeed, the artists have now been invited by the Carlisle Renaissance consultants to support the public consultation process.

A Walk to Het Steen Drawing Installation, Horsley Primary School

Organiser: Imogen Harvey-Lewis, artist, workshop co-ordinator, parent

     This project was simple but ambitious. The starting point was a Rubens landscape, familiar to pupils involved in the National Gallery’s Take One Picture scheme focusing on this painting. The challenge was to bring An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning to life in a collective artwork reflecting its atmosphere, and owned by all contributors. The result was a walk-through, corrugated cardboard spiral maze and hundreds of individual monochromatic marks. Horsley church accommodated 100 primary school pupils, a GCSE class, Stroud FE College students, parents, governors, staff, friends and villagers.                               

Imogen provided an overall plan and structure, organising the participants into age groups, with the youngest drawing insects, blades of grass and foliage, the oldest providing two and four-legged animal and human interest. After two days of intensive, exciting co-operative drawing, the school now boasts a lightweight travelling exhibition, which can be endlessly re-arranged to reveal new details. It records 200 close encounters with a Dutch masterpiece and the Gloucestershire landscape.

Jetpack Stroud kindly donated a huge roll of corrugated cardboard

An Invitation to Explore & Shape the Future, Gardens of Easton Lodge Preservation Trust

Drawn to the Wild Wood, Chislehurst Common Big Draw Initiative

Organiser: Donna Bompas, independent art teacher

        Planning for the fourth Chislehurst Big Draw started in the spring – with teaching packs sent to primary schools for use in the autumn term.  Every pupil received a postcard invitation to attend and enter the Wild Wood picture competition. The event spanned 18 activity centres (gazebos) run by over 100 volunteers in badger ears and tails to reinforce the theme!  The packed programme included a Rogue’s Gallery with mirrors and frames for self-portraits; a woodland identity parade; sketching birds of prey; calligraphy; 360-degree panoramas; storytelling storyboards; fancy dress life-drawing; an over-18s’ still life drawing tent; butterfly mask-making with Bromley Museum; modelling gruesome and gorgeous clay gargoyles; creating nature collages on the path; bartering drawings for balloons and creating a phantasmagorical forest mural on the pub’s walls.

Milton Keynes Big Draw, Milton Keynes Gallery

Organiser: Natalie Walton, head of education

The education team partnered four agencies in a month of experimentation, engaging people of all ages with drawing.  Workshops with Adult Continuing Education expanded adult learners understanding of drawing – from sketchbooks to body art and 3-D investigations of space.  MK Community Foundation and the Behaviour Education Support Team supported six after-school programmes for parents and children, with students from the University of Northampton, exploring identity and other ideas from the Gallery exhibition. Perceptions of formal art were challenged with blindfold drawing, living still-lifes, ‘stretching to sketch’, and turning the classroom into a giant sketchbook to record a day in the life of Milton Keynes.

Inventions & Engineering, Lichfield District Council

Organiser: Celia Hoghton, arts development officer
Building For the fifth Lichfield Big Draw, Celia worked with three heritage sites, creating – with her team of artists – relevant activities for each.  In the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, a workshop inspired by Johnson’s passion for tea used teacups and saucers to make printed paper tray cloths.  The Drawing Machine competition in inventor Erasmus Darwin’s House offered prizes for the best designs and working models.  Visitors to Chasewater Heritage Railway recalled their journeys on large paper rolls, or used the train’s motion to produce wobbly sketches. 

More Canvas for Brunel, The Brunel Museum

Organiser: Robert Hulse, curator
Spurred on by The Big Draw, Robert’s commitment to involving local people of all ages in creative activity has brought dramatic changes to the museum’s surroundings. Over four years, an unlovely wilderness has been transformed into a well loved and used community garden with a growing number of functional features such as Brunel’s Ship of Blueprints – which doubles as a drawing table. This time children were involved in designing and making a new café sign (with help from the blacksmith) and families decorated a huge sail raised in celebration above the ship sculpture.