Find here my Session Plan
In this session I wanted to develop the basis for a drawing workshop with objects from our collections. It is something that we have talked about for a while within the Archives and Special Collections Centre (ASCC). With a background in drawing, I was also interested in thinking about this for my own interest.
I consulted with my colleagues as well as fellow professionals across the community of practice.
My immediate colleagues, such as Georgina Orgill, were keen to think about how to make it work for students who don’t necessarily feel confident at drawing. That this should not feel a prerequisite for engagement. As we work with students across the university, not all students are bringing drawing skills with them. And even within arts and graphics students, art education has changed, from a focus on traditional skills (which are have been perceived in the post-modern era as elitist), to ideation, there is (for better or worse 😉 ) less emphasis on technical skill. This is also connected to discourses seeking to dismantle traditional paradigms/canons for art practice and education.
Colleagues in other parts of the Community of Practice such as Judy Willcocks had tried drawing workshops before, where the Central Saint Martins’ Museum collection was used as a jumping off point for students to think about drawing in different ways. But in conversation with Judy, she said she had found herself wondering, why start with museum objects? Meaning: it could be any objects used. She was keen to think of how the activity would engage/critique/work in dialogue with the collection itself.
However, there are fluctuations in discourse and different viewpoints. How such skills are practiced and valued is something I would still like to think about a future workshop. It might be possible to think about developing drawing skills… but another time. With regard to the ‘why museum objects’ – there could be a benefit even in just using the collections as a jumping off point, to raise their profile and our services within the UAL Community. I would like to come back to think about these other sorts of drawing responses again in the future.
Nevertheless, I took both these colleagues concerns on board and tried to think about something that might: 1) involve drawing, 2) engage critically with the collections and 3) also be accessible to people who don’t feel they are “good” at drawing.
I also had been interested to hear about collage Sarah Campbell’s recent work on “ludic” practices (Campbell, 2019), alongside speaking to friends external to UAL who have worked in the (TEFL/TESL sector), about ways to encourage verbal classroom participation. So I had thought about the use of a “game” framework for students to enter into, as another way to relieve anxiety around classroom participation. I am also indepted to chats with colleagues within the ASCC including with Zoe Buckberry and Erin Liu, where I think my idea first emerged, and who (along with Georgina Orgill) I have honed my teaching planning and delivery skills alongside in our daily work.
The activity and its aims
The activity I devised, which was a bit like ‘pictionary’ but students had to describe the object in front of them to other students who (facing another direction) were not looking at them. These students, listening to the descriptions, had to draw what they imagined the object to be like from the description. So whilst the practice of drawing was involved here, it was really as a means to reflect on the practice of description, rather than the end in itself. (Lindstrom, 2012)
With this emphasis on description, it actually also links to some other ongoing developmental research work we are doing with a team at ASCC which we are thinking about ways to engage different audiences in for feedback: in developing new ‘critical’ cataloguing guidelines, that seek to embrace a more mindful approach to the description and intellectual arrangement of our archival collections.
By encouraging students to think about description, the aim of the task was not just about honing their verbal skills, but aiming to encourage them to think critically, as researchers, when they encounter a description of something: what is described, what remains obscure. Whilst there might be an habitual sense that ‘description’ is something ‘objective’ wheras, ‘analysis’ might involve the ‘subjective’, in fact both activities are highly mediated. What someone chooses to describe about a thing says a lot about the describer.
Feedback
Audio Feedback from the group
There were some logistics to the set up for the session, which might have to be thought about for the future – particularly when scaling the activity up for larger groups. Feedback from others was really valuable here.
Possible options included:
- Thinking about the set up/size of the room to facilitate enough space between groups
- Changing the activity so rather than in pairs, having one, two or three students as describers at the front of the class (perhaps swapping in and out of the room/use noise cancelling headphones so they don’t here the other’s discussions) and the other students all drawing; Alternatively building on a series of drawings together based on different descriptions. The additional benefit of this could be encouraging thinking about multi-vocal descriptions for catalogues.
- A further twist on this was to have students collaborating on the same drawing – each adding bits from what they remember they heard from the description.
- It was beneficial to have more than one response to the object – so groups could be a bit larger, perhaps up to 10 students.
- Doing the session online, with break out rooms, so students are focused on. Sending images of the drawing to one person in each break out room who is the describer. But break out rooms can be a challenge to administer sometimes – so could be just sending to one student for the whole cohort.
Other things that were noted:
- General good feedback on the structure.
- People enjoyed the fact it was set up as a game and they could relax into it, the instructions were clear, and you just entered into it.
- The ritual of the set up, using the gloves, and me bringing the objects out was also commented on, as building anticipation, and preparing for the activity.
- One suggestion that might be helpful to initiate a pause before starting to draw, as the description is emerging from the describer. Then getting the describer to start drawing again. This was because it was hard to get a handle on what was being described. And also as new things emerged in the description, interpreters wanted to change their drawings/felt unfortunate they could not. So wait to listen to the full description first before starting to draw, and then getting the students to draw once they have heard the full description. That once the students start drawing if they don’t have an eraser. The other option is to bring them! Or use a different drawing material – white board pens and mini whiteboards/ tablet. Someone did also suggest charcoal that could then be rubbed out – but you can’t have that near the museum objects, unfortunately. I am not sure. I could try this but might also just allow a bit more time for description, as well.
- I think working in pairs or threes was generative, but I brought up that when they were all talking together to describe, it might make it tricky for students to focus in on the conversation with their partners, if other conversations are happening around them. (Another student picked up on this – underscoring it might be hard for neurodiverse students to focus.)
- The description activity might be challenging to those with english as a second language. When I say ‘no further questions – other than if you didn’t hear something’ I could also add ‘or if you didn’t understand the word that the describer used’
- The students seemed engaged in my session and talked in animated voices.
Further thoughts
- I enjoyed it – which as per some of the reading we are doing is also an important thing to keep in mind to keep active and engaged as a teacher. (McDonald and Michela, 2019)
- Timing – I would have liked to have a bit more time for discussion and reflection as a group at the end. But it was a coherent and punchy 20 minute activity.
- More honing both in terms of scaling up, and trying different activities alongside it (e.g. the second blind drawing activity which we did not have time for)
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Campbell, S. (2019). ‘Ludic practice: the case for play in university museums’ in Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 4(1). Available at https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/124/199 (Accessed 19 March 2025)
Lindstrom, L. (2012). ‘Aesthetic Learning About, In, With and Through the Arts: A Curriculum Study’ in International Journal of Art and Design Education, 31 (2), doi: 10.1111/j.1476-8070.2012.01737.x
McDonald, J. and Michela, E. (2019). ‘The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy,’ in Design Studies, 62, pp 1-35. doi: 10.1016/j.destud.2019.02.001
Salamon, M. (2018). ‘Drawing laboratory: Research workshops and outcomes,’ in Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 3(2), pp. 131-141