Every term we have a speaker week when we usually invite an external speaker to deliver lessons on a relevant topic.
This term, we did something a little different. One of our wonderful volunteers, a retired art teacher, Jane, and one of our Entry Level 2 students who happens to be an artist ran a very inspiring and uplifting art workshop. The student artist started with us as a 1-1, joined our remote group class and has made brilliant progress in her English. It was great to see her confidently lead the group.
Following on from International Women’s Day last week, the students continued the theme of celebrating women during the art class. They discussed and compared paintings of and by women and then they were given the chance to participate in a guided portrait drawing session using famous British women who have English as a second language as inspiration (see photos to draw).
Thanks to funding from Arts for All, were able to post all the participating students some art materials to use for this.
Some of the portraits drawn are shown below, and give an idea of what students created in the short time they had. Some of the students had a real hidden talent!
Here are some key take aways:
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- 42 students participated.
- Students were able to use words for feelings (about art) in a safe and non triggering way.
- Students were given the opportunity to do something new.
- Students were encouraged by the lead students’s improvement from when she first started drawing. The lead student’s message was: “practice makes perfect” and “be kind to yourself along the way”.
- Students were incredibly focussed during 20 minutes drawing. We had relaxing music playing and it felt meditative and grounding. We discussed the importance of finding time for yourself.
- The lead student was incredibly grateful for the experience. It has been wonderful to see her work so well with the lead volunteer in the lead up and she delivered the sessions brilliantly.
Here is some feedback from the day.
One client was very proud of what she had created, saying:
I have never drawn before
One of our trustees who attended enthused
The class today was novel and uplifting! What a great idea to do this – many thanks to you, Jane and Slywia. Please pass on my congratulations to them. Also I think it is a first in that a student/client participated in a centre stage role in a lesson which LEAH as an organisation wants more of and which definitely sets a precedent for us to do more similar classes involving our students on a range of subjects.