Sorry to be a bother as this post is not about music at all but does anyone know of any art course (especially during the half term in October or C'mas holidays, etc) available for primary age kids in east London / central London? I'm looking for one on how to draw well which is suitable for my daughter who is always with either a book/fiddle/doodling pencil in hand as a surprise birthday present. She seems to like drawing a lot of abstract stuff but she once told me that she also wants to learn to sketch (conventional) things like scenery, cartoons and animals but not humans!

Thanks!

Are you sure that a course is the way to go at this stage? Violinutter may be just enjoying her drawing as a restful solitary activity at the moment!

I enjoy drawing (and painting when I can get a minute), but I learned almost entirely from books - copying and even tracing pictures and photos with a pencil gave me a sense of line and shading.

I love drawing people, because I like to draw moving objects, so I can't recommend many books for VN's preferred subjects. For complex things like animals, she may get on best sketching from photos at first, because they are already in 2D and not in 3D, and the subjects obligingly keep still in photos! That will help her get an idea of the basic shapes and proportions of each animal.

Looking at books of animal skeletons is a sure way to make your animal look more real, and the old adage of "draw the way things grow" is just as useful for animals as it is for plants - pencil stroke should start from base and run to tip of hair, or from shoulder to paw, base of tail to tail-tip, and not the other way around.

Lots of people struggle with drawing trees well (me too!), and again, the "skeleton" will help you out - get one of those books from the library that has photos of trees, close-ups of leaves, and a little diagram of the leafless tree structure. You will quickly see that in some trees, the branches join the trunks at an acute angle, while others are nearly right-angled - and every twig will be at the same angle in relation to its branch, making sketching quick and easy once you observe the main branches.

While it's tempting to draw the things you can see best first, with trees and landscapes it's best to shade in the fuzzier masses in the background, and work "forward" towards yourself, adding more detail and leaving more white highlights.

I've taken 4 short courses in drawing or painting in the past 40 years, only one long-term, and 2 were useless - either too focused on holiday fun or too obsessed with the teacher's own preferred look; while two were great - one focused on basics, over and over again, while people got on with their own stuff; while the other was one of those folk art courses, but run by a teacher who was much more specific about teaching technique than any fine art teacher I've met, and very supportive of people painting in their own style, from fine art to tea trays.

As a child, I really benefited most from copying things - I spent a few months in bed sick, and having oodles of time to look at pictures over and over again and draw whatever I wanted made my drawing take wings. Nothing wrong with copying - it's no more reprehensible than playing Bach instead of making up all your own music!

However, painting is a bit different - my mother was determined not to "waste" money on paints or brushes or paper/board/canvas for me, and really, I didn't learn which brushes were which and how to use them, or how to prepare surfaces, use mediums etc, until I took some lessons as an adult. I tried to read books as a child, but without money for materials to try it, what I read was incomprehensible to me.

As long as you have plenty of good paper and good brushes, and some decent paint, you could teach yourself watercolour painting, because the paint texture is more uniform. However, it's not so easy to fix up mistakes with watercolour - but if you get really sturdy paper, I hear that you can just get under the shower with it and literally hose off the bits you don't like!

As far as learning how to control a brush goes, I think nothing beats Chinese ink painting - that's how I taught myself the basics, because brushes, ink and paper were cheap enough for me to buy with my pocket money. The only snag is that Chinese ink stains...

"The Complete Sketching Book" by John Hamilton looks like a good'un. Apart from that, just checking art books out of the library and looking at them is a great education. Silverpoint drawings by old masters are a great education for pencil drawing - I bet Violinutter would enjoy looking at Durer's drawings.

There is an annual event called The Big Draw which runs nationwide for all of October. If you look at their web site http://www.thebigdraw.org.uk/ there are a number of events throughout the month - for instance a day of drawing at the British Museum. I think events get added to the list all teh time. This might be a good way to start ....

Also, out of interest, has your daughter started her Saturday music classes yet ? and if so how are they ? Is she enjoying herself ?

I have two daughters (nearly seven and nine) both of whom go to an art class during term-time and like All Ears I am actually a bit dubious about their usefulness. I enroled the younger one because she is excellent at drawing, loves painting and in the French school system they do very little creative work and I felt she was missing out. The following year the elder one wanted to go as well because she liked the pictures her sister was bringing home. Last year I put them into the same class initially (convenient for me since I could drop them off and pick them up together) bur within a few weeks realised this wasn't going to work and so they go to different classes on different days with different teachers who teach in a different way.

My younger daughter's teacher just lets them get on with it. They are free to choose to paint, draw or whatever and she has copies of paintings and drawings which they can copy if they want to. She only really intervens if they ask for help. Younger daughter loves this approach but that is because she can already draw. When she was about five she said to me "You know, all you have to do is look at something carefully and then it comes out then end of your pencil all by itself." With her it literally does (and it never ceases to amaze me). She can look both at paintings and real objects/animals/people and see their shape and which lines are important.

Elder daughter likes drawing/painting but is not particularly good at it (actually she is no worse than her class mates but because her younger sister is so good she suffers by comparison when she's at home). She has a teacher who does very structured things and they work on one teacher-determinted project (either drawing or painting) over about a month. Her teacher does teach technique (same thing to everyone at the same time). Elder daughter did acquire quite a bit of technique last year but I wouldn't say her observation skills have improved at all and she still needs someone to show her which are the important lines.


All this to say that you need to think about what sort of approach Violin nutter would like. If you get the wrong sort of approach it is likely to put her off more than anything else.

Thanks, you are great, folks.

First, all ears, and keriobe, this course is NOT meant to be serious! That's why I'm not looking for weekly classes as such. Just to RELAX like some retired folks do when they go away for a weekend to draw or paint?

... to meet some other crazily arty kids for social reasons and also to learn something useful on the side. Just for FUN. A birthday present, that's all. To be frank, it's IMpossible to put VN off art. It's in her blood. She is far more an artist than a musician. I mean she's so original and unconventional in her art and yet pretty predictable/normal in her musical tastes although I would hesitate to judge her too soon. She also has this strange habit artists/my dad have/had - destroy almost every piece after she has done them if not up to her fussy standard and if they are, give them away!

Secondly, re. trees, she's fantastic on drawing trees, all ears. She once drew a huge tree on a visit with her dad to Menuhin and the art teacher liked it so much she told VN that she "must apply there," and "I need you here for your art." Hehe. By the way, my late dad was an amateur artist and as a tiny toddler she wasn't quiet in those days and used to tell everyone she'll be an artist when she grows up. How kids change! Some kids need a very laid back approach like VN. Others like her brother are at the opposite end of the spectrum. According to his consultant, therapists and psychologist, he needs "a bit of a push to put it mildly" without which he will rest contented in his own wonderful world and absolutely refused to mix or grow! Unique lovable creatures our kids. Parenting IS a challenge!

That website should be great! Thanks very much, parent 1.

RAM Saturday School? It's starting this Sat and she can't wait. Asked whether she's excited by a mom, her reply was, "I'm not excited. I'm getting impatient!" I suggested to her to remember NOT to take things too seriously. Life is for the living, girl, first and foremost, not to please others (including your dad and teachers) musically or otherwise.

Sounds just like my son. He has really enjoyed a set of books I got from The Book People, which I initially hesitated over as he was way younger than the age recommendation on them. They are published by Kingfisher books, and are called Draw 50, by Lee J Ames. There is one for animals, one for horses specifically, one for flowers and trees, one for dinosaurs (his fave!) plus several others including one on faces - at first he didn't like that one but he does now.

Ooh, I've just looked on Amazon and there's another one that wasn't in the set when I bought it - Draw 50 Monsters -Creeps, Superheroes, Demons, Dragons, Nerds, Dirts, Ghouls, Giants, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Curiosa - that's one Xmas pressie sorted

When I was a kid, I went to a painting course at our local art gallery during half-terms, where we used to learn a bit about the exhibits there as well as get to experiment with making our own - I recall them being great fun. You could try contacting your local galleries. I know they weren't well advertised then as they were so oversubscribed just by word-of-mouth marketing.

Hazel

Glad to hear Violinutter is doing so well with her art - she's got a lifetime of pleasure ahead of her.

I second the "Draw 50" series recommendation - not too expensive, not too much detail, plenty of different stuff to look at/try.

There are some excellent books on fantasy art these days, with information about how people invent monsters or make things look almost infinitely large etc. Such fun to draw.

The Big Draw sounds like fun...wish I was there! But wait, I just checked the linke and they not only have a few overseas events, they have several internet things going on. Yessss!

Kerioboe, I know what you mean about what suits one child not suiting another - as true for music as it is for art.

Thanks, Hazel, we did use to go to art galleries before the baby was born and just the major ones thereafter. They are quite enjoyable in terms of their presentations but often geared towards the intellectual adult. The Nat G has very good kids-geared ones.

Won't buy Draw 50 yet as I'm still equally keen on the social aspects and not just the learning curve. Hmmm, something for the future... Drawing superheroes definitely sounds like her cup of tea!

The Big Draw is cool. A must. Hey, the Barbican one looks fantastic! Anyone from here care to go? It's on Wednesday at the London EC2Y.

Over the summer the National Gallery was running children's workshops on Saturday afternoons. I don't know if they will be doing this again in the October half-term.

I'm sure you've done this, but my children love a visit to the local pottery painting shop. You pay a studio fee £4 in our case, they choose from a huge range of things to paint. A week later you go back and it's fired, glazed and ready to take home.

We sometimes give them a visit as a present - with a budget.

Oooh yes - have done a bit of that, and although I am not very good, it's fun and the intricacies of making the brush do what you want are not easy but very satisfying when something goes right.