Young Arts Day - Thursday, 12th November 2009
Comic Art Master Class at Monks Walk School, Welwyn Garden City, Herts.
As part of their commitment to promoting the arts, each year WGDFAS arranges an event for young people in the Welwyn / Hatfield area.
In the past two years we have worked with young carers to arrange visits from artists /storytellers to work with the children, developing illustrations for their own stories. Both occasions were hugely enjoyable and much appreciated. We paid for the artist and venues providing the necessary art materials, receiving extra grants from NADFAS House and publicity in the NADFAS Review.
This year we decided to capitalise on the growing interest in graphic art, especially among young teenagers. Kev. F Sutherland, a graphic artist from Bristol has an enthusiastic following in Hertfordshire and came with glowing references. On 12th November, WGDFAS funded a full day workshop at Monks Walk School. This was a cross curricular project between the school library and the art department and involved 21 pupils from year 7 and 2 pupils taking the graphic art option of their GCSE art course. The pupils were chosen by the Librarian, liaising with the Art Department in the school. The workshop was held in the Library and it proved to be an exciting day.
Kev arrived on time (10 a.m.), travelling from Bristol that morning and within minutes had established his “street cred” and demonstrated his ability to inspire and control the group. Kev had worked on the Beano, Marvel, Funday Times, Dr Who, Viz and many other publications. Kev enthused about being a graphic artist and working on graphic novels. He spoke about his career in advertising, answering questions and demonstrating various techniques – how to show a wheelchair, perspectives for drawing skyscrapers were just two examples. The morning was spent with individual pupils, developing ideas for their own comic strip. After lunch, provided by the school, the drawings were ready for inking in.
The objective was to provide a comic book by 3.30 p.m. for each pupil to take home. Every child contributed to the title page and provided work for the contents. This was achieved and each child took home a caricature of themselves drawn by Kev who claims to be the fastest caricature artist in the country. The young people were absorbed and intrigued all day. The atmosphere was wonderful with friendly, skilful control enabling everyone to work creatively. Monks Walk staff, who observed the Master Class in action, were very impressed with the concentration and enjoyment shown by the pupils.
Norah Irvin - Young Arts Co-ordinator - the WGDFAS committee would welcome suggestions for future Young Arts events.
