This workshop was a chance to explore our forthcoming Whānau Day project, lead by Fiona. Fiona shared some approaches to mark-making that we can use with the children to free up their drawing and encourage them 'out of their comfort zones'. We were encouraged to play with scale, pressure, materials, textures and ways of making marks (including drawing with scissors).
Using a mystery box of small objects (bark, shells, leaves, buttons, toys), we tried out a selection of warm-up drawing activities from this list:
● Observational graphite drawing
● ‘Wrong hand’ drawing
● Pressure contrast: push hard / tickle drawing
● Memory drawing (object hidden) with white pen or chalk on black paper
● Double-line drawing with felt + biro
● Oversize continuous line on A3
● Irregular shape frame (tear paper edges)
● Cut-out silhouette and pastel around negative space
We also experimented with some Gelli Prints, using our cut-out silhouettes and various kinds of mark-making directly onto the plate. We aimed to layer up the images, working from the lightest to the darkest colours.
These are techniques that we will share with our Whānau Groups this term and we can also add to our kete for use in the future.
Here is a selection of photos of the artists at work.
