In-Depth Drawing Experience for Teenagers by Betsy Dadd
Artist and educator Betsy Dadd shares how she inspired teenagers to enjoy an in-depth exploration of drawings resulting in working on a large scale and finally animating their work.
This project was shared with AccessArt as part of the 40 Artist Educator Project, funded by Arts Council England, aiming to highlight and celebrate artist-led teaching and facilitation.
Moving & Drawing by Betsy Dadd
Betsy offered year nine Graphic and Art students at St Bede’s Inter-Faith School, an exceptional opportunity to look and visually re-consider the environment around them with an in-depth exploration of the drawing process.
Betsy showed students her own work and talked about her process of creating large scale, textured animations on paper. Betsy then led students through a series of insightful and meaningful drawing experiences that would make students re-examine their idea of what drawing is.
“The workshop at St Bede’s was dedicated to drawing and in particular moving drawing. By venturing out of the classroom to the various green spaces around the school, we explored different ways to look and record what was seen. As well as experimenting with mark-making, the exercises were about being observant and scrutinising familiar spaces that often go overlooked. Whilst the drawings were abstracted from their subject matter, they exist as a portal back to the experience of being in that place.”
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Loren McCarthy
July 10, 2014 @ 10:36 am
Betsy Dadd has done a fantastic job working with the children of St Bede Inter-Faith School, this workshop was a pleasure to document!
Thank you so much AccessArt for letting me be a part of it 🙂
Katherine Woodard
July 11, 2014 @ 12:01 pm
This was a great opportunity for students to work alongside a working artist and to learn new techniques. Through working together students experimented with ways to turn their drawings into rapid animations or ‘moving image’ pieces. They really benefited from spending the day (rather than just lessons) working towards the final animation and many students used this opportunity to produce art work in a very different way. The photos of the day were fantastic. Thank you!
Sheila Ceccarelli
July 11, 2014 @ 12:12 pm
Thanks so much Katherine – it was great to work with you – such a fabulous art department where students’ creativity is obviously well nurtured by your fabulous team! I’m astounded by the quality of work across the whole project and hope very much that we will be able to facilitate more similar workshops in the future.
Look forward to seeing you and your students at the VIVID Young Creatives Celebration event next week. Best wishes, Sheila
Chris Owen
July 14, 2014 @ 5:12 pm
Great drawings. It’s good to see such a range of real drawing skills being practised in school, and then used to such imaginative effect.
Susie Olczak
July 15, 2014 @ 7:35 pm
WOW large scale drawing done so excitingly. I’ll definitely be trying this out.