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THE MATTER OF LANDSCAPES
Drawing landscapes with charcoal
Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre), Marvila
Lisbon, Portugal
1 APRIL 2010
Drawing landscapes with charcoal
Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre), Marvila
Lisbon, Portugal
1 APRIL 2010
REPORT 4 - IDEAL
Intercultural Drawing for European Adult Learning
Intercultural Drawing for European Adult Learning
WHAT
A workshop organized for a group of senior participants focused on responding to the theme of landscapes by drawing with charcoal
wHERE
Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre with hospital facilities)
Marvila, Lisbon
Portugal
WHEN
1 April 2010, 15.00 – 19.00h
WHO
facilitators and staff
Guida Casella
Teresa Carneiro
Daniela Vasco
Ricardo Baptista
ADULT LEARNERS
16 male and female seniors, residents at Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre), Marvila, Lisbon, Portugal.
why
Mansão D. Pedro IV is a Home Care Centre with hospital facilities dedicated to elder people and adults with physical and mental impairments. Mansão D. Pedro IV is situated in Marvila, a socially and economically deprived area, where Drawing Spaces /Fábrica Braço de Prata is also situated. At the beginning of 2010 Drawing Spaces approached Mansão D. Pedro IV with a proposal to develop a continuing set of activities as part of the IDEAL – GRUNDTVIG project. The proposal was accepted and since then, Drawing Spaces has been periodically organizing and developing a series of activities for the senior community of Mansão D. Pedro IV, which have included, among its participants, some of the residents with physical and mental impairments.
The Matter of Landscapes was the first of these series of activities where the artist in residency at Drawing Spaces was invited to collaborate, in response to the work she was developing at her residency project in Drawing Spaces/Fábrica Braço de Prata.
Guida Casella is a practice based researcher/artist whose work is based on the field of Archaeology. In March 2010 she developed a one month drawing residency at Drawing Spaces on the theme Timeline_The time of drawing to explore drawing methods in archaeological drawing in their own expressive and aesthetical values, most of the time less relevant when reading the findings resultant from such kind of drawings in scientific research. This is a short description of Guida Casella’s project which helps to provide background for understanding the ways in which drawing was being approached in the workshop The matter of landscapes:
“(…) Guida Casella, working in Archaeology, professionally producing scientific illustrations, handles very old objects. They can be 3000 yrs old pottery, or 800 yrs old tombs. These objects hold in themselves the passage of time. (…)
[According to the artist, the aim of her residency project was to explore:]
As already referred The matter of landscapes was a workshop based on some simple archaeological drawing strategies which Guida Casella was using at the time of her residency at Drawing Spaces. As an artist drawing for archaeological research, among various other strategies, Guida Casella uses grids and measuring methods to produce her own drawings.
The approach to this activity was to use grid systems to facilitate the enlargement of images of landscapes which were used as reference for this drawing activity.
The use of vegetal charcoal was carefully chosen as the medium for producing drawings of landscapes for being something familiar to the participants, enabling them to relate more easily to the materials- both subject and working tools – in terms of its matter. The most immediate example was the use of charcoal for making fires in the winter and for cooking purposes, but participants also related to charcoal in terms of its medical uses among other things. Therefore the choice of this medium allowed connecting the proposed drawing material to the theme of the workshop – The matter of landscapes. While this might have been something that created some expectation on the results, the focus on charcoal as matter allowed the participants to feel the material as if they were building and feeling the landscapes, through touch, with their own hands and fingers while producing the drawings.
The main objectives in this workshop were for participants to:
HOW
This workshop took place in a dedicated event room at Mansão D. Pedro IV which was adequately prepared before the starting of the workshop with tables and chairs; reference books; printed images; drawing materials: paper, graphite, charcoal, tissues, cloths, rulers, soft erasures, etc.
VALUE FOR PARTICIPANTS
Participants used the first part of the workshop to overcome initial resistances to the activity of drawing as well as to using their hands to directly interact with the material.
The first group discussion encouraged participants to interact with each other more than usually in their daily lives and activities at Mansão D. Pedro IV, and to talk about some of their memories which were enacted by each other’s drawings.
As a result, participants were then able to interact more confidently and productively in the later group work. They responded more strongly and actively as the workshop progressed and soon were very concentrated and motivated in producing collective enlarged drawings.
At the end of the session, when the bigger drawings were hanged on the walls of the institution, one could note very clearly how proud participants felt in their achievement. This workshop showed to be key in perceiving the ways in which participants can become empowered through drawing activities. Participants stated they felt both surprised with their achievements and very proud of their final work. The positive reaction to the workshop was also felt when participants asked the facilitators to take pictures of each group in front of their final works and then also of the facilitators with the groups with which they collaborated with in front of the works.
VALUE FOR FACILITATORS
Working with elder people was an extremely rich experience for facilitators.
Even if this people live together in an institution, they tend to be isolated in their own personal world and personal routines. So to begin with, it wasn’t straightforward how to gain the participants’ trust and will to engaging in the project. To start by taking about familiar subjects, such as landscapes and charcoal and asking how participants related to these subjects through their memories showed to be extremely helpful in terms of starting to gain people’s interest in the proposed activity. Facilitators learned that sometimes it is easier to engage participants in an activity by asking them to immediately make something, but in other cases, such as that of this workshop, participants need to be listened too and facilitators need to find ways of gaining their trust and interest through the most adequate strategies.
For the participants it was also a very enriching experience to sense how this activity provided the participants with a huge sense of self-esteem, pride, empowerment, and acknowledgement of the importance of others in functioning as a group.
VISUAL RECORDS
A workshop organized for a group of senior participants focused on responding to the theme of landscapes by drawing with charcoal
wHERE
Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre with hospital facilities)
Marvila, Lisbon
Portugal
WHEN
1 April 2010, 15.00 – 19.00h
WHO
facilitators and staff
Guida Casella
Teresa Carneiro
Daniela Vasco
Ricardo Baptista
ADULT LEARNERS
16 male and female seniors, residents at Mansão D. Pedro IV (Home Care Centre), Marvila, Lisbon, Portugal.
why
Mansão D. Pedro IV is a Home Care Centre with hospital facilities dedicated to elder people and adults with physical and mental impairments. Mansão D. Pedro IV is situated in Marvila, a socially and economically deprived area, where Drawing Spaces /Fábrica Braço de Prata is also situated. At the beginning of 2010 Drawing Spaces approached Mansão D. Pedro IV with a proposal to develop a continuing set of activities as part of the IDEAL – GRUNDTVIG project. The proposal was accepted and since then, Drawing Spaces has been periodically organizing and developing a series of activities for the senior community of Mansão D. Pedro IV, which have included, among its participants, some of the residents with physical and mental impairments.
The Matter of Landscapes was the first of these series of activities where the artist in residency at Drawing Spaces was invited to collaborate, in response to the work she was developing at her residency project in Drawing Spaces/Fábrica Braço de Prata.
Guida Casella is a practice based researcher/artist whose work is based on the field of Archaeology. In March 2010 she developed a one month drawing residency at Drawing Spaces on the theme Timeline_The time of drawing to explore drawing methods in archaeological drawing in their own expressive and aesthetical values, most of the time less relevant when reading the findings resultant from such kind of drawings in scientific research. This is a short description of Guida Casella’s project which helps to provide background for understanding the ways in which drawing was being approached in the workshop The matter of landscapes:
“(…) Guida Casella, working in Archaeology, professionally producing scientific illustrations, handles very old objects. They can be 3000 yrs old pottery, or 800 yrs old tombs. These objects hold in themselves the passage of time. (…)
[According to the artist, the aim of her residency project was to explore:]
- The functional aim of heritage illustration (the aim to register, document, communicate)
- and the sensible aspect (aesthetic value, materials, technique, graphic language)
As already referred The matter of landscapes was a workshop based on some simple archaeological drawing strategies which Guida Casella was using at the time of her residency at Drawing Spaces. As an artist drawing for archaeological research, among various other strategies, Guida Casella uses grids and measuring methods to produce her own drawings.
The approach to this activity was to use grid systems to facilitate the enlargement of images of landscapes which were used as reference for this drawing activity.
The use of vegetal charcoal was carefully chosen as the medium for producing drawings of landscapes for being something familiar to the participants, enabling them to relate more easily to the materials- both subject and working tools – in terms of its matter. The most immediate example was the use of charcoal for making fires in the winter and for cooking purposes, but participants also related to charcoal in terms of its medical uses among other things. Therefore the choice of this medium allowed connecting the proposed drawing material to the theme of the workshop – The matter of landscapes. While this might have been something that created some expectation on the results, the focus on charcoal as matter allowed the participants to feel the material as if they were building and feeling the landscapes, through touch, with their own hands and fingers while producing the drawings.
The main objectives in this workshop were for participants to:
- Understand how one could create a big image by working as a team.
- Experience and controlling the process of enlarging an image through the use of grids.
- Experiment and get comfortable with the use the medium – vegetal charcoal – while working directly with hands and fingers to move the pigment around while making the landscape appear on the paper.
- Participate in a group activity (working in groups of 4 or 5 adults for each drawing), while negotiating working areas, ways of dealing together with the working material and subject matter, and the responsibility of shared project
HOW
This workshop took place in a dedicated event room at Mansão D. Pedro IV which was adequately prepared before the starting of the workshop with tables and chairs; reference books; printed images; drawing materials: paper, graphite, charcoal, tissues, cloths, rulers, soft erasures, etc.
- The workshop was introduced by looking at images of artists that have used vegetal charcoal in their works, whilst looking at different ways of representing landscapes
- Participants then started to produce some very informal drawing experiments with charcoal. Each person was asked to produce imagined images of clouds (although some images were provided as reference) by working directly with the fingers moving the pigment around the surface. This helped participants to overcome any ‘fear’ of not being able to draw, or to get the hands stained with the charcoal.
- These preliminary experiences were hanged on the wall as they were being produced.
- Similar experiences were then done, this time proposing the theme of imagined landscapes as a subject.
- The resulting works were also hanged on the wall as they were being produced.
- Participants were then gathered around the drawings hanged on the wall to discuss with facilitators their first thoughts on working with charcoal, the proposed themes, and the references which were provided. Participants showed a huge engagement with each other’s works, but also by looking at their own drawings hanging side by side with other people’s works. Participants were also happy to respond to the discussion by talking about what certain images recalled them, and the reasons why they preferred certain images over others.
- On the second part of the workshop people were divided into groups of 4-5 people, each accompanied by a facilitator.
- Simultaneously 4 or 5 landscape images were enlarged, with the help of facilitators, by using a grid system.
- After a short break, participants returned to their working area and started filling in the areas in the composition of landscapes using charcoal, cloths, hands and fingers.
- Different relationships were created within the groups. At this stage, participants became very enthusiastic as they realized the effects they could get out of the drawing materials.
- At the last part of the workshop, an installation was made in a corridor hall and stayed there as an exhibition for other residents, staff and visitors to appreciate (as well as the participants themselves!). Participants felt extremely proud of their achievements. Participants and facilitators engaged on a final discussion over the project, working processes, themes, and results. Other residents and staff from Mansão D. Pedro IV who were passing by the corridor hall were also invited to respond to the work and participate in the final discussion.
VALUE FOR PARTICIPANTS
Participants used the first part of the workshop to overcome initial resistances to the activity of drawing as well as to using their hands to directly interact with the material.
The first group discussion encouraged participants to interact with each other more than usually in their daily lives and activities at Mansão D. Pedro IV, and to talk about some of their memories which were enacted by each other’s drawings.
As a result, participants were then able to interact more confidently and productively in the later group work. They responded more strongly and actively as the workshop progressed and soon were very concentrated and motivated in producing collective enlarged drawings.
At the end of the session, when the bigger drawings were hanged on the walls of the institution, one could note very clearly how proud participants felt in their achievement. This workshop showed to be key in perceiving the ways in which participants can become empowered through drawing activities. Participants stated they felt both surprised with their achievements and very proud of their final work. The positive reaction to the workshop was also felt when participants asked the facilitators to take pictures of each group in front of their final works and then also of the facilitators with the groups with which they collaborated with in front of the works.
VALUE FOR FACILITATORS
Working with elder people was an extremely rich experience for facilitators.
Even if this people live together in an institution, they tend to be isolated in their own personal world and personal routines. So to begin with, it wasn’t straightforward how to gain the participants’ trust and will to engaging in the project. To start by taking about familiar subjects, such as landscapes and charcoal and asking how participants related to these subjects through their memories showed to be extremely helpful in terms of starting to gain people’s interest in the proposed activity. Facilitators learned that sometimes it is easier to engage participants in an activity by asking them to immediately make something, but in other cases, such as that of this workshop, participants need to be listened too and facilitators need to find ways of gaining their trust and interest through the most adequate strategies.
For the participants it was also a very enriching experience to sense how this activity provided the participants with a huge sense of self-esteem, pride, empowerment, and acknowledgement of the importance of others in functioning as a group.
VISUAL RECORDS
