Making Books

One of the 20 hand-written letters received after running a book-making workshop for 2nd graders at SJII. The best testimonial ever!

Next week, from Oct 31 to Nov 1st, It’s Book-Binding week… in French (French School Holidays!)

If you are older than 8, you can join! You will get a chance to look through my collection of hand-made artist books, and each day, we’ll experiment with a different book-binding strategy.

Whether it’s wood, leather, cloth, fancy paper, hinges, recycling paper, string, rope, all the material will be there to experiment with.

Could you imagine making making a book with just what you find in the forest? We might just step into the backyard and see what we find…

Check out the poster below (details in English here.)

It’s no walk in the park…

… drawing in the jungle is actually hard work.

As today’s Drawing Class and Jungle Workshop got excited about stepping into the backyard, I thought how great it was to have an opportunity to take the kids out when the weather’s not too hot (morning class!), and not to have to walk too far before we could see some quiet nature (and that’s an understatement).

The plan was to study some real leaves, and the general shape of some trees, how things look like from “within” before doing our own drawing, back at the studio.

And of course, it happened. After some running around, watching the monkeys, the ants, and other bugs, kids settled and each drew a few leaves on their own. Then, as concentration grew, children started noticing things. Really small insects, and strange leaves. And then, experimentations! “Would this leaf float? Would it still float if we put stuff on it? Does it slow down? Oh, look at this leaf – it’s got beads of water on it. Wait, the water bounces on it! Let me see, let me see…”

Drawing leads to Experimenting. CQFD. Oh, and nature helps too!

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Batik?

Rebekah’s batik drawing

The Drawing Classes in September had fun using paint. I know I always say that my class is DRAWING and observation… but we always start by using a picture. The first step is understanding what medium was used for creating the artwork. And this time, I was using a well-loved postcard of a design by Singapore Batik artist Sarkazi Said Tze. The children were having difficulty finding out what medium was used. I used cues, such as “what are the colur of the lines for the edges?” but still, “Batik” didn’t come out as the answer (for the young ones… the 10 year olds got it instantly).

So, I decided I would give them a chance to try a “resist” technique. The children had to draw white -on-white with wax crayons (tricky!). Then, they used watercolour to fill in their shapes. The younger ones painted directly on unprepared paper, whereas I took time to gesso-prepare the paper for the older ones. For a view of the whole portfolio, check out our Facebook page (it’s easier to share pics there!).

Now, announcing Holiday workshops, starting NEXT WEEK all the way until the end of November… check them out!

It turns out that archaeologists need to draw too

from "Drawing: the Purpose" by Helen Wickstead

Archaeologists need to draw. Recording information is only the first step it seems. You’ll find artists and archaeologists working closely in this group aptly named   Art + Archaeology…

The group is run by archaeologist Helen Wickstead, who wrote this wonderful article entitled “Drawing: The Purpose“. In this article, Wickstead describes the “specialised drawing technique” that field archaeologists have to learn. Many rules. You’d think there was no room for creativity. You’d be wrong… deciding where to place an edge, and seeing context before placing marks on the paper can only be achieved through making these decisions. And drawing is about interpretation.

So, it helps if you are confident about your drawing skills in the first place!