The Arts Society Kington Langley provide Drawing workshops based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Exciting opportunities to work with groups of year 5 and year 6 students from Monkton Park School in Chippenham

Art is a very important subject in the school and they are applying for Arts Mark Gold.

My workshops are to help with this application and also to support drawing skills for year 5 entries for the Art Bytes Digital Gallery and exhibition next June in Chippenham.

The illustrations in the books are fantastic with cross hatching and tonal work to inspire the students. There is also a feeling of the fantastical which helps to develop their compositional and observational skills

Each group had about an hour to an hour and a half workshop so we looked at the importance of initial observational skills, drawing what they saw, looking at all the details and enlarging their work to give them enough space to shade to create depth and magic.

They were really enthusiastic, acting upon advice and handling the shading with increased skill and confidence. We looked at the different grades of pencil, developing different tonal depths depending on which pencil used.

As we discussed in each group drawing requires us to think of about 20 things at once so concentration is essential. We looked at surfaces, how to create depth, surface texture, transparent objects, how the more fantastical an object is the more realistic each part of the whole must be.

The work was amazing in such a short time and the students are to be commended on how much they achieved in such a short time.

The book is used as a stimulus for imaginative writing as well as illustration so there are great opportunities for creating interesting and detailed work across the curriculum.

The day finished with a display of sketchbooks from all the years. Each class was able to go and see what they had achieved as well as celebrate what the other years had created as well.

The students have had an opportunity to develop their drawing skills but also to realise how important observation, looking at shape, colour, tone and mark making is and that they need to draw what they see and not make it up.

The book was a fabulous opportunity to experiment with ideas, develop new ways of putting images together to tell a story.

Also if they want to create something that is fantastical the individual details need to be accurate or it makes no sense.