Square Chapel Art workshops

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to land myself a job as lead artist on the Square Chapel Arts workshops. I am really very excited about being associated with such a great organisation, and with working with such passionate arts co-ordinators. This last weekend (7th January) was the first session. I only had 5 students, but there was a nice mix of ages (between ages 11-16), 4 girls and 1 boy, which was excellent.

I started by using some ice-breaking games. I find this sort of thing pretty cringe-worthy when I have had to do them in the past, but you know what, they work! I tried to do a mixture of physical/ non-physical ones. I think the physical one could have gone better. I tried to be as enthusiastic as possible, but I blame Saturday morning syndrome.

As an introductory session, and as suggested by the arts co-ordinator, I decided to make folders/ portfolios with them. There isn't much room at the chapel, so it's pretty imperiative we find someway of storing their work in a small space. This seemed like a good idea, and since I gave them free rein to decorate them how they wanted, it was a good diagnostic tool for seeing their levels/ abilities too. It was really interesting to see the different ways they approached the task. Some just went for it, whilst others were more timid or unsure of themselves. There is one student in particular who was excellent, and I think it will be great to have her as an example of how to 'loosen up' for those other students who might struggle with this concept. I'm really passionate about pushing these students to think about art in a very different way, I am planning to use some excercises that I first did at art college. I hope every single one of them leaves the sessions realising that 'art' doesn't mean drawing/painting a picture that looks exactly like real life.

This Saturday I am going to make small sketchbooks with them using this awesome tutorial. I thought it would be good for them to have something they could do little warm up excercises in at the start of every class. They will only be small, but it will be a useful skill to have non-the-less.