Life Drawing Workshop
A three hour intensive, evening workshop, exploring structure, form and movement of the human body.
Students had the chance to experiment with a variety of media and colour, to explore shape and structure of the human body, to let go of inhibitions in quick fire sketches and to play with negative spaces.
Aims
To allow A Level Fine Art and Graphics students the opportunity to take part in a life drawing session, and to explore and experiment with their art in a creative and unpressured environment.
Life drawing is a difficult aspect of art for students to access, the cost of models and instructors, along with the need to arrange it for suitable times and in suitable venues where the students and models feel comfortable can make this difficult for many schools and consequently many students miss out on this opportunity.
This immediately benefited the students involved both within our own school and our partner school. Producing a series of pieces during the session being able to learn from the instructor and other participants around them.
Background
A life drawing workshop for our Fine Art students had been discussed previously, as an opportunity for students to explore an aspect of art outside of what can be done with in class. Having to travel into the city for sessions always adds addition difficulty with timing and affecting other classes, so the idea of running a workshop in the evening would mitigate a number of these problems.
Having a small number of students in our A level classes meant that we could open this up to a partner school. This was Pinner Highschool's first year of A level Art studies so it was an easy decision to open this opportunity up for their students.
Resources
Access to an established Life Drawing instructor and model were crucial. We then needed to ensure that we had large, private and heated venue where the workshop could be run.
Staffing requirements were minimal, with the instructor running the session, staff were only needed to provide numbers for safeguarding and first aid.
No financial contribution was required from the partnerschool.
Pupil Involvement
Pupils involved are currently in Sixth form (16+), and all female although this is due to the uptake of the subject and not due to any selective pressures.
Frequency
This is a yearly event, with the possible development of a session 2 exploring further skills in future years.
