What do we see in class? Each other, and beauty, and all of these things. It’s so good to reflect together on what we see. I encourage everyone to try put saying nice things about your own drawings. Neutral and curious keep it simple, what do i see? I would be delighted if people offered…
Tag: learning
What if? Naenae drawing workshops
Sometimes if you have a question, you gotta get out and ask it with others. What came up really strongly in this free workshop to explore where we live, is that “All of our perspectives are different.” I heard that in different ways, all day, and yes, you’re so right! I love drawing as a…
We should have an exhibition!
In the last class, we all bring our drawings in. The floor is carpeted with expressive life drawing – bold charcoal swirls, delicate personal watercolour webs. A huge document of what we have experienced and made together. I’d really like to share some of it. I have booked the gallery at Vincent’s Art Workshop for…
Permission and expression
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we give ourselves permission. The inner critic is strong, and we have ideas in our heads about what is a ‘good’ drawing. And also, what fear looks like. Slow, careful, diffiult lines, with shoulders hunched, eyes screwed up, and all the while fearing who is looking over our…
“No vulnerability, no creativity”
I love this about the conditions we need to be able to learn. Brene Brown, Daring Classrooms “No vulnerability, no creativity.” “85% of the people I’ve interviewed over the last 15 years remember a shaming experience at school that changed forever how they think of themselves as learners.” Brene Brown Over the years, I have…
Week 5 Artist residency – St Mark’s Church School
We are rocking through the term, and loosening up all the way. This week we learned techniques for building our compositions more densely, by repeating colours and shapes that were already there. We are working on sticking with our artworks, building and layering. Adding lighter and darker versions of the colours that are already there,…
Week 3 – St Mark’s Artist Residency
In week 3, I really started to identify with the themes the classes are working with. Expressing ourselves through art, telling the stories of where we have come from, and talking about our feelings and values. I’m working with the fantastic art teacher, Markelle Archer, and today she told me about a child drawing, smoothing…
Keep moving
One of the great things about teaching is that I get hear myself explain the processes I go through all the time in the studio. This week was the last of a block of classes, and I shared what I know; that I can teach, only because I do. All of the fear, the uncertainty,…
Drawing through touch
In Expressive Drawing Class we do this exercise where we draw through touch only. You close your eyes, and I give you a fragment of sculpture from the studio. They are lumpy, tangled, odd, silky. They are not things that you usually see, and so you can’t identify them. You have to feel your way…
Fernridge and Masterton Primary schools make art…
This project was with Fernridge school and Masterton Primary, in Masterton, supported by the Wairarapa Road Safety Council and Greater Wellington Regional Council as part of the Regional School Travel Plan programme which aims to have more children travelling safely, actively and sustainably, to school. I worked with two full classes of ten year olds to create three pou…
Sian Torrington Art Classes 