I write about children’s crafts for whipup, and blog most every day about art and design at Art Esprit.
The Big Draw is an annual event showpiece from the organisation, Drawing Power. Their patrons are heavy hitters in the drawing dept: Quentin Blake, David Hockney,and Posy Simmonds just to name a few. Their aim is simple: To get everyone drawing. They say “that drawing can be a public activity as well as a private passion. 1000 venues across the UK, from great national institutions to village halls, will be joining in to offer people of all ages the chance to discover that drawing is enjoyable, liberating and at everyone’s
fingertips. The Campaign was inspired by the great Victorian writer and visionary, John Ruskin. His mission was not to teach people to draw, but how to see. Each Big Draw season brings fresh opportunities to discover how drawing can connect us to our environment and heritage.” And it is spreading … this year there are events in New York City, Boston, Jersey, Dublin and Gibralter. Anyone can participate and there are even events on the internet.
Interested in how to find an event already happening or to organise an event? Here is the press kit! They even have directions for planning drawing activities…and running drawing activites. At our gallery we used their on line theme page to start our group of 30 children and parents drawing last year in an informal participation. We applied for information last year and we are in the process of organizing a more formal Big Draw event for 2007 in New Hampshire. I think that it is a great way to get children, adults and community exposed to something which is at the core of our being and often gets ignored. Who knows? Maybe by practicing drawing we will all come to see our world a little more clearly.
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I am SO excited about this. We are heading to London in October with our daughter. My husband Bill, a professor of graphic design as well as my partner in FunQuilts, will be giving a lecture on Design to American university students studying in London. We will all participate I’m sure. Many thanks for posting this!
That is great Weeks! Hey, we have a lot in common! My husband was a professor of design in Münster, Germany – until he married me and moved to the states! Have a great time in London…good timing!
I did a workshop for the big draw once. I made a digital version of join the dots that projected on to a sheet of paper, so that it would look like the children had drawn themselves when the paper was removed.