Drawing Face To Face With Music

The aim of the workshop was to get people to draw, draw, draw!

A range of activities using cheap and simple materials was available, and the essential requirement for those who took part was enthusiasm.

Photos of all sorts of people were used as a starting point. Participants drew them using graphite, charcoal, crayons, felt tips and so on.

Music was key to the atmosphere of the workshop, and different music was used for different activities:

One-minute sketches created in pairs were done to light background music; the sketches were brief and distinctive.

Upside-down photos were drawn to help improve “proportion awareness”; the background music was calm to help concentration.

In ‘Can’t take my eyes off you’ pairs looked straight into each others’ eyes while drawing, as if they were in love. They could only look at what they had drawn when they lifted the pencil off the paper; the Cotton Club/Flower Duet provided the music.

Draw to the Beat was all about energy: participants use short, fast lines to strong drumming sounds, transmitting energy.

'Squiggle and wave about' got people drawing photos of faces to the swirls and flow of Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald and Strauss.

In 'Getting hotter' participants drew a photo of a face by keeping their pencil on the paper at all times, beginning slowly but becoming frantic as the sailor’s hornpipe became strong and rhythmical.

Self-portraits were made to the music of Ravi Shankar, and people were encouraged to feel their own nose, eyes, ears, mouth to add feeling to their drawings.

The finale of the session involved everyone working together on a gigantic piece of paper, with light-hearted background music encouraging involvement.