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ON YOUR MARKS!
A TOOL-KIT FOR ORGANISING
DRAWING WORKSHOPS
FOR ADULTS
INTRODUCTION
A TOOL-KIT FOR ORGANISING
DRAWING WORKSHOPS
FOR ADULTS
INTRODUCTION
‘On
Your Marks!’ is the outcome of an EU Grundtvig partnership project called
‘IDEAL (Intercultural Drawing for European Adult Learning)’. As partners in the
two-year project, we are visual arts organisations sharing a concern with
informal adult learning, but we differ in what we do and how we do it:
Our seventh partner, Second Chance School in Korinth, Greece, ([email protected]) unfortunately had to withdraw early in the project.
During our project, we aimed to identify and share effective ways of organising and conducting Big Draw workshops. Find out more about the project at IDEAL Project http://www.campaignfordrawing.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/IDEAL_Project.pdf
- The Campaign for Drawing (UK) based in London: the lead partner and IDEAL project co-ordinating organisation
- Keramické Studio Jarmily Tynerové (Czech Republic): a pottery studio in rural Kohoutov
- KulturLabor e.V. (Germany): a community arts organization in Berlin
- Szépmüveszeti Múzeum (Hungary): the National Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
- Marino College (Ireland): a Further Education college in Dublin
- Espaços do Desenho (Portugal): an artist-led gallery and drawing workshop in Lisbon
Our seventh partner, Second Chance School in Korinth, Greece, ([email protected]) unfortunately had to withdraw early in the project.
During our project, we aimed to identify and share effective ways of organising and conducting Big Draw workshops. Find out more about the project at IDEAL Project http://www.campaignfordrawing.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/IDEAL_Project.pdf
HOW TO USE ‘ON YOUR MARKS!’
We regarded IDEAL as an informal action research project. This means that for two years we made systematic changes to the way we organised drawing workshops, looked at what happened, reviewed the results and shared them with each other. We are now sharing them with everyone else through On Your Marks!. Since it was an international partnership, we could identify methods and approaches that worked successfully in various countries. What we found is presented here as guidelines for use by anyone intending to set up a drawing workshop for adults. The guidelines are in three parts:
· Part 1 - CASE STUDIES
· Part 2 - THINKING ABOUT A WORKSHOP
· Part 3 - ORGANISING A WORKSHOP
We suggest you start by going through the photographs of people and drawings in Part 1- CASE STUDIES, just to see what workshops can be about. Each case study also includes a description which gives you more information about why, where, and how the workshop was conducted. Most importantly, it tells you what the organisers felt about the value and impact of the workshop for themselves and for participating adults.
If you find these workshops interesting, there is some general information about what is involved in Part 2 - THINKING ABOUT A WORKSHOP.
More direct advice and practical guidance forms Part 3- ORGANISING A WORKSHOP.
In presenting these guidelines, we have followed the personal learning cycle experienced by anyone involved in organizing drawing workshops:
- Being attracted to the idea
- Reasons for a workshop
- Who will participate in it and how
- Setting up and conducting the workshop
- Reflection and evaluation as the start for another workshop…..
To make it easier for you to find what you want to know, each of the numbered points in Parts 2 and 3 can be read entirely on its own: you do not have to read any of the others – unless of course you want to. To help you with this and save time, the first words of each numbered point tell you what it is about.
It works like this:
- Generally unsure about running a workshop?
- Want specific guidance on why you might offer a workshop?
- Think you might have forgotten something practical ?
- Not sure about how you get people to draw in a workshop?
- Looking for ideas about what to actually do in a workshop?
So “On Your Marks!’ does not tell you how you should or must organise a drawing workshop. It is not a set of ‘how to do it’ instructions for you to follow. It is really more like a kit of tools: you quickly choose the most appropriate bit of advice or guidance to help you. Or you might prefer to look through the case studies, pick something that attracts you and use it in any way you like. And you can combine any part of the case studies with any of the guidelines. Neither text nor images are copyright – they all open for you to use.
Please use the On Your Marks! tool-kit to create your own workshops…..or fix or repair less successful ones. The main point is that we want you to use the case studies and guidelines for your purposes as you organise your own workshops.
One final point: whilst On Your Marks! came out of a project concerned with adult learners – young, not-so-young and older – most of it is equally useful in drawing workshops with children.
ON YOUR MARKS! PART 1:
CASE STUDIES WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
http://campaignfordrawing.net/international/your-marks
CASE STUDIES WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
http://campaignfordrawing.net/international/your-marks
ON YOUR MARKS! PART 2:
THINKING ABOUT A WORKSHOP
CONTENTS
A. Drawing - what do we mean?
B. Facilitation - what does it mean?
C. Workshop - how is it a learning experience?
A. ‘DRAWING’ – WHAT DO WE MEAN?
A.1 The practice of drawing and how it can be encouraged through conducting workshops for adult learners is what On Your Marks! is all about.
A.2 ‘Drawing’ can mean both an object and an activity.
A.3 ‘Drawing’ (an object) has a life beyond the time and place of its origin: its meaning continues to change according to who sees it, and when and where they see it.
A.4 ‘Drawing’ (an activity) can usefully be thought of as ‘making marks with meaning’ because this phrase highlights the infinite possibilities of drawing.
A.5 Making marks with meaning is open to everyone (we can all make marks in some way) and universally accessible (we can all understand and respond to marks made by others)
A.6 Making marks with meaning is not the only flexible approach to drawing: it is also useful to think about what drawing means to you …..and to act on it.
A.7 Making marks with meaning reflects back on ourselves: through it, we can come to understand, critically review and actively shape ourselves, our relationships with other people and the world in which we live.
A.8 Drawing workshops are individual journeys of learning for everyone involved: this has become clear to partners through the IDEAL project.
B. FACILITATION – WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
B.1 Facilitation is a pedagogical method that is internationally recognised and practised in adult learning.
B.2 Facilitation centres more on the needs of learners, and less on teachers’ wishes and the discipline of a subject.
B.3 Facilitation is conducted by someone who is experienced and knowledgeable in enabling learners to develop their own ideas and practices.
B.4 A facilitator can be - but does not have to be - an artist, because the focus is on the learner and their needs.
B.5 A facilitator:
- clarifies the purposes of learning but asks learners to relate those purposes to themselves,
- ensures a wide range of resources (which include him or herself) to support the learners,
- accepts and understands that feelings, responses and reactions are central to how and what people learn,
- acknowledges their own limitations and capabilities and recognises those of others.
B.6 Facilitating a drawing workshop means enabling participants to:
- learn how to learn and evolve their own approaches,
- discover more about themselves as they learn,
- create new ideas and images for themselves,
- direct and organise themselves, and
- critically reflect on how and why they are drawing.
B.7 Facilitating drawing as learning by others means:
- developing skills whilst not setting rules,
- evolving frameworks without setting limitations,
- setting standards whilst not making judgments,
- building trust whilst supporting risk taking,
- prompting, testing and encouraging, and
- guiding from behind, not leading from the front.
B.8 Facilitated learning through drawing is reflexive for learners: a dialogue with themselves about how they understand their worlds, and how they themselves are changing.
B.9 Facilitated learning can be encouraged by the facilitator through:
- communicating supportively with learners
- stimulating thought and imagination
- providing differing types of inspiration
- judging when to intervene, keep quiet or hover
- managing learner expectations
- organising furniture and circulation spaces
- identifying and providing suitable materials.
B.10 Facilitating the learning of others is a reflexive experience for the facilitator or team of facilitators: a critical dialogue about what they are doing, about how they understand their worlds and those of others, and about how they themselves are changing through facilitation.
B.11 Facilitating learning through drawing needs to include time when everyone concerned can think and talk about what they and others are doing, and a suitable space in which to do it.
B.12 For drawing to become learning, what is produced, how it is produced and what has been learnt in the process by all concerned (including the facilitator) needs to be thought about and discussed: drawing on its own is not enough.
C. WORKSHOP- HOW IS IT A LEARNING EXPERIENCE?
C.1 A drawing workshop can be a learning experience for the people who come to it, for the facilitator(s) delivering it and for the organisation that provides the context for it.
C.2 Learning means creating change in the ways in which we customarily do, know and feel things, and benefiting from those changes.
C.3 Learning takes place because we reflect on the effects of changes and this leads us to do, think or feel things in a different and more beneficial way in future: critical reflection interacting and alternating with action.
C.4 Learning generates more learning and so it forms a cycle of beneficial change in the actions, knowledge and feelings of individuals and groups of people.
C.5 A drawing workshop becomes a learning experience through making marks with meaning, evaluating the results, and using the experience to start another drawing.
C.6 A drawing workshop is a learning experience both in itself and as part of a longer-term cycle.
ON YOUR MARKS! PART 3:
ORGANISING A WORKSHOP
ORGANISING A WORKSHOP
CONTENTS
1. Context - what comes first?
2. Purpose - why offer a workshop?
3. People - who is this workshop for?
4. Practical - what must be done?
5. Activities - what goes on in a workshop?
6. Reflection - what value does it have?
7. Planning, further reading and next workshop.
1. CONTEXT – WHAT COMES FIRST?
1.1 Context means the circumstances under which a workshop is planned, conducted and evaluated.
1.2 Context includes institutional, social and cultural factors and these need to be thought about when starting to plan a workshop.
1.3 Context is neither fixed and nor neutral: it will change from workshop to workshop; it will influence the character of each workshop, and will be understood differently by almost everyone involved.
1.4 The expectations that participants (adults who attend) bring to the workshop are likely to be important in how they respond to it.
1.5 Understanding participants’ expectations can be gained by taking account of how they got to know about the workshop, the organisation or institution that offers it, the building in which it is housed and the room in which it is held.
1.6 Timing of the workshop will determine who is able to attend – do not, for example, hold a workshop for families during school hours or for employed adults during the working day.
1.7 Materials will influence participants’ expectations: artists’ drawing materials are more likely to lead them to expect instruction than felt-tip pens that are associated with writing or marking.
1.8 Everyone’s motivation needs to be taken into account: yours, those of your organisation or institution, those of the person or persons who conduct the workshop, and those of participants.
1.9 A workshop is a social event and so it will be influenced by who else is taking part, how long participants are expected to draw, whether or not they can come and go during the workshop, and whether it is a single workshop or part of a series.
1.10 Communicating how people are expected to participate is important: is it free, do they need any previous experience in drawing, do they have to be there at the start of the workshop and will they miss anything if they leave before it finishes, can they drop-in, do they participate as individuals, as groups, or as a family member?
1.11 The organisation offering the workshop – library, museum or gallery, school, hospital, park, commercial company, large or small, national or local, formal or informal – is part of the context and by its character will influence how people engage with the workshop.
1.12 Advertising is part of the context: the use of language and images, informal or formal media, advance notice of the workshop and whether in-house, local or wider promotion is used will all contribute to the context of the workshop.
2. PURPOSE - WHY OFFER A WORKSHOP?
2.1 Generally, the wider purpose(s) in offering workshops is determined institutionally: a gallery may want to attract different types of visitors; a hospital may want to improve the quality of life for patients; a school, college or university may see a drawing workshop as a form of curriculum development; or in the case of an individual acting as an organisation, she or he may decide that conducting drawing workshops is part of their job as an artist, social worker or employee.
2.2 The purpose(s) of a particular workshop will be for you, the workshop organiser, to decide.
2.3 The purpose(s) of your workshop should be written down as your ‘aims’ and ‘objectives’.
2.4 Aims are your general intentions for how people will learn: the changes they will experience from being involved in your workshop.
2.5 An aim might be for participants to feel:
· confident about themselves and what they can do,
· proud of what they have achieved through drawing,
· motivated to explore other forms of learning,
· that they know more about art or culture,
· that they have become more skilled in drawing,
· that they can mix more easily with other people, or
· something else that you or your organisation thinks is worth aiming for.
2.6 Aims need not be written down as such but should inform and inspire how you plan your workshop.
2.7 ‘Objectives’ are very different and need to be written down: they are essential not only to each workshop but they contribute to what you do afterwards; setting yourself objectives turns a drawing workshop into a learning experience for the adults who participate in it, your organisation and for yourself.
2.8 Objectives are your specific intentions in conducting a workshop; achieving objectives is measurable so that at the end you will know to what extent the objectives you set yourself have been achieved, and this in turn forms part of how you evaluate and review your workshop….which in turn generates ideas for the next one.
2.9 Objectives might be to:
· produce a lot of quick drawings or one large one,
· get people drawing individually, in pairs or in groups,
· explore a specific subject, approach or technique,
· improve skills, change attitudes or transform idea,
· learn more about a topic, activity or theme,
· use drawing in problem solving or designing, or
· achieve any measurable goal that you or your organization thinks is achievable through the workshop.
2.10 In deciding on aims and objectives, you might want to think about what you may be ignoring or forgetting – this is difficult but it can be very useful.
2.11 Questions to ask yourself:
What am I assuming without questioning?
What am I taking for granted?
Is this a useful aim?
Why am I setting these objectives?
Do the objectives support the aim?
In what way can these objectives be measurably achieved?
How will I know when they have been achieved?
Why is drawing an appropriate way of achieving them?
Are the objectives achievable through this workshop?
Who will benefit most from the workshop - me, the participants, the facilitator(s) or the organisation?
3. PEOPLE – WHO IS THIS WORKSHOP FOR?
3.1 Drawing workshops can be open to everyone irrespective of age, gender, status, socio-cultural position or ability but - following the spirit and practice of The Big Draw – especially those adults who claim they cannot draw, or who want to broaden their capabilities and/or experience.
3.2 Adults may come to your workshop voluntarily or as part of a programme; as individuals, in pairs or as members of a family; or in an organised group (large or small), for the whole workshop or for part of it.
3.3 Participating adults may choose - or be asked - to draw in the workshop as individuals, alongside familiar people or teaming up with one or more persons who are new to them.
3.4 Participants’ flexible involvement and varied characteristics will have an important effect on what they can expect and what they can do in your workshop, and you should plan your workshop with these in mind.
3.5 One or more people can facilitate a workshop but it is useful to be clear about their respective roles for the benefit of themselves and workshop participants.
3.6 Facilitators will often be artists or other visual arts professionals, but they can be from other fields and do not need to have experience in the practice or theory of art.
3.7 Skills and experience of facilitator(s) will have an important effect on what they can expect and what they can do in a workshop, and you should plan your workshop with these in mind.
4. PRACTICAL – WHAT MUST BE DONE
4.1 Arranging things in advance of the workshop is essential for practical reasons and for anticipating unforeseeable events.
4.2 Arranging in advance is sometimes forgotten, or only partly done through lack of time or because it is assumed that everything will come together in the workshop.
4.3 Arranging in advance allows the facilitator(s) and learners to focus on pedagogical aspects during the workshop.
4.4 Size and facilities of venue or location need to be sufficient for possible numbers of learners.
4.5 Test before hand that any equipment is working correctly and safely.
4.6 Check any health and safety, or legal requirements for the workshop venue or location.
4.7 Furniture needs to be appropriate for the workshop, sufficient for learner numbers and arranged in a way that indicates to learners what they are going to do.
4.8 Materials (what learners will draw with and on) need to be available and readily usable: provide more than you estimate will be necessary.
4.9 Ask yourself before the workshop starts what you have
forgotten to arrange – there will be something.
5. ACTIVITIES – WHAT GOES ON IN A WORKSHOP?
5.1 Drawing activities are as diverse and imaginative as the people involved.
5.2 No activity is right or wrong, nor are there any preferred methods or desirable approaches to drawing, or ‘making marks with meaning’.
5.3 As we draw, we can record, note, analyse, observe, transfer, map, interpret, or translate what we see.
5.4 Through drawing we can communicate, promote, entertain, amuse, decorate, instruct, recall, inform, and excite.
5.5 Drawing can creatively link, cross over and develop various types of knowledge: sensory, intellectual or emotional; and various fields of knowledge: industrial, historical, natural, geographical, scientific or artistic.
5.6 Drawing involves varied skills: intellectual, practical, social, emotional or personal.
5.7 Drawing uses different intelligences: spatial, linguistic, logical, kinaesthetic (bodily), rhythmical, interpersonal, intrapersonal (reflective) and environmental.
5.8 Drawing activities can last for a minute, an hour, a day in single workshop; they can be continuous, broken up, intermittent or phased across any number of workshops.
5.9 Encouraging adults to draw is easier if you vary the activities: complex or simple; easy or challenging; entertaining or serious; noisy or quiet.
5.10 Encouraging adults to draw is easier if you vary the timescale of activities:
· a few seconds (jokey and fun),
· a few minutes (immediately appealing),
· an hour or so (more engaging),
· a few hours (extended confidence building),
· half a day (continuous exploration),
· a day (exploration with more time for reflection),
· several separate half-days or days( evolving and developing with staged periods of reflection).
5.11 Encouraging adults to draw can be phased: short, entertaining ‘ice-breakers’ can lead into deeper involvement and prolonged engagement when you think they are ready for it.
5.12 Encouraging adults to draw can be as simple as explaining that they can do it because we all ‘make marks with meaning’ in our everyday lives: we draw diagrams, sketch maps, doodle, mark out distances or count with marks.
5.13 Drawing activities can involve ourselves as mark-making instruments: leaving footprints or other tracks that show where we went and what we did, or grouping photographs, symbols or other visual items to tell stories.
5.14 Drawing activities, however imaginative, always have a physical product: the drawing or arrangement of marks.
5.15 Drawing activities in workshops are limited only by how widely your personal imagination and critical judgment can interpret ‘making marks with meaning’.
6. REFLECTION – WHAT VALUE DOES IT HAVE?
6.1 Reflection is a past, present and future activity: it changes our understanding of what we have done, directs what we are doing now and helps us imagine and plan what we do next.
6.2 Reflection means pausing, thinking and asking:
· what are we doing?
· what have we made?
· is it what we intended?
· could it have been different?
· what do we do next?
6.3 Reflection also means the same as ‘evaluation’, because it helps people put a value on their drawing activities.
6.4 Reflection also means the same as ‘review’, because it helps people see their drawings in new and different ways.
6.5 Reflection is much more than saying whether or not you like a drawing, or are satisfied with it.
6.6 Reflection on what is made and how it is made, and on how these match workshop objectives generates ideas about what to do next.
6.7 Reflection is not only a concluding activity at the end of the workshop: it informs, guides and shapes drawings and drawing throughout the workshop, and is an essential part of making any particular drawing.
6.8 Reflection on what marks we make and how we make them gives meaning: simply making marks is not enough for drawing to be a learning experience.
6.9 Reflection involves asking yourself what you did, how and why you did it, and what you might do next.
6.10 Reflection can be conducted silently on your own, verbally with others, in public or in private, or in writing; formally through organised sessions or informally through
conversation, or in the act of drawing itself: reflecting on the marks as they are made.
6.11 Reflection should be recorded electronically, noted down in writing, or incorporated in the present drawing. or a further drawing and as soon as possible, because we all forget things.
6.12 Reflection is undertaken by learners, facilitators and organisations - individually, in their separate groups, or in combinations of individuals and groups.
6.13 Reflection on drawing workshops helps learners:
· demonstrate how they have progressed,
· understand what they have learnt,
· discuss and share their discoveries,
· appreciate differences in others’ learning,
· build confidence through all the above.
6.14 Reflection on drawing workshops helps facilitators:
· know what has been going on in a workshop,
· measure achievements against intentions,
· recognise that any differences can be good,
· see how to plan their next workshop,
· better understand their facilitating methods,
· understand how learners think and feel about the workshop.
6.15 Reflection on drawing workshops helps organisations:
· understand what drawing workshops can do,
· see how they support and extend the organisation,
· recognise the value of workshops for learners,
· identify changes they could make in their activities,
· include drawing workshops in future policies and provision.
7. PLANNING, FURTHER READING AND NEXT WORKSHOP
7.1 Planning comes before and after every workshop and links all your workshops into a continuous cycle of life-long learning.
7.2 Planning includes reflecting on what you have done in order to guide you in deciding what to do next.
7.3 Planning includes taking advice from outside and this includes further reading.
7.4 The Campaign for Drawing produces a range of inspirational booklets on drawing. These are fully illustrated, conveniently sized, and are available from wwww.campaignfordrawing.org
7.5 Further reading about organising drawing workshops could usefully include:
wwww.campaignfordrawing.org/bigdraw/downloads/BigDraw_Res
ources.pdf
wwww.campaignfordrawing.org/bigdraw/downloads/BigDraw/Plann
ing.pdf
wwww.campaignfordrawing.org/bigdraw/downloads/DrawingDifferently.pdf
wwww.campaignfordrawing.org/bigdraw/downloads/Evaluation&Documentation.pdf
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Whilst On Your Marks is the result of cooperation between many people, thanks are especially due to the following for conducting the project, contributing case studies and devising the guidelines:
Anna Cruschiel
(KulturLabor e.V.,Berlin, Germany)
Konstantina Pista
(Second Chance School, Korinth, Greece)
Martina Leonard
(Marino College, Dublin, Ireland)
Jamila Tynerova
Keramické Studio Jarmily Tynerové.
(Kohoutov, Czech Republic)
Litza Juhasz
(Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary)
Teresa Carneiro
(Espaços do Desenho, Lisbon, Portugal)
Eileen Adams
(Campaign for Drawing, London, UK)
Thanks also to facilitators and others participating in the project, many of whom carried out action research workshops and /or contributed to case studies:
Czech Republic:
Dana Gregova, Eva Kulickova, Jessica Mayne Lenka Stodulkova, Eva Svobodova, Nadia Vener.
Germany:
Anja Edelmann, Barbara Lenz, Eva Randelzhofer, Anna Zosik.
Greece:
Maria Karakatsani, Dimitri Sotirchos.
Hungary:
Zoltan Bartos, Evi Birkas, Judit Cser, Edina Deme, Zsofi Laszlo, Dora Lovass, Zsofia Tettamanti, ,
Ireland:
Frank Barr, Anthony Douglas, Christine Falls, Martina Galvin, Gerrard Greene, Tom Leonard, Roisin Lonergan, Maggie McKeever, Alison Pilkington.
Portugal:
Ana Marin, Ricardo Batista, Guida Casella, Diana Regal, Daniela Alcantara Vasco, Marta Carneiro.
UK:
Lucy Brennan-Shiel, Julia Colmenares, Roos van Haeften, Lorna Rose, Pamina Stewart.
Thanks also to the literally hundreds of adult learner who attended their workshops.
It has been my enjoyable job (and privilege) to co-ordinate the hard work, enthusiasm and talents of all these people,
Tom Jones
(co-ordinator of the EU Grundtivig partnership, IDEAL, on behalf of The Campaign for Drawing, London, UK)
