Where Will You Draw The Line?

Sixty students from Art and Design, Graphics, Photography, Media and Performing Arts courses, supported by their tutors, organised a Television Roadshow in Manchester’s Exchange Square.

Hosted by BBC presenter Donal MacIntyre, with famous cartoonist Bill Tidy presenting his Anyone can Draw challenge, the event was relayed live on the BBC Big Screen for four-and-a-half hours.

The aim was to raise public awareness of the positive benefits that art and creative activities have on mental health. Television Production students projected interviews they had filmed earlier with Arts & Health professionals.

Passers-by were invited to explore the infinite possibilities and qualities of lines in a programme of enticing free activities.

3-D design students demonstrated ingenious clockwork drawing machines, which made weird and wonderful geometric patterns, and helped novices to construct their own.

At other drawing stations, visitors contributed to a hundred-metre Big Doodle, painted themselves as matchstick figures on a Lowry-style outline of present-day Manchester, and marked their journeys to the Square with masking tape on canvas.

Later the canvas was washed with colourful acrylics and the tapes were removed to reveal impressive abstract designs.

Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Awards

The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust aims to increase public appreciation of the arts and music. Their awards recognise educators, artists, teachers and others who use The Big Draw to extend their audience’s perception of drawing and to engage them in innovative activities. They reward organisers whose events relate to their setting, local environment or community, show a clear purpose and good results. Individual drawings may have been used to create a collective artwork, or a public display to celebrate participants’ achievements.