Royal Academy Outreach Day 2004

Every opportunity is taken at Clifton to scrutinise current practice in art education. In this context, it is all too easy for schools to focus on the outcome, overlooking the importance of engaging deeply with processes that take pupils far beyond the surface of the paper and the desire to make attractive images.

The Outreach experience, led by Paul Brandford, gave pupils the chance to realise that involvement in art can be instructive, emotional, intuitive, risk-taking and also physically tiring. In addition, results may not always be immediately quanitifiable, as the primary purpose may not always be to achieve verisimilitude.

At the beginning of the day, pupils explored imaginative exercises that encouraged greater resourcefulness, with critical appraisal of drawing materials, through mark-making exercises linked to expression of feelings. As as example, Paul instructed the pupils to use charcoal to make 'dirty, vicious, spiteful' marks, in contrast to 'soft, fluffy, dreamlike' marks. Confidence, inventiveness and emotional power developed in consequent drawings where the model took a more central role in terms of communicating the dynamics of the human form, linked once again to the expression of feelings. Tension, relaxation, then anger and submission were strongly suggested in poses that drew out images from the pupils that were alive with feeling and movement.

The non-judgemental approach taken by Outreach explains the special nature of the workshop. Children were given the freedom to fail - without this there would have been no risk-taking and no opportunity to discover the unexpected. For children existing in a culture of testing, examining, grading and quantifying, this took courage and open-mindedness. Paul encouraged a sense of play, and created an environment where children felt confident enough to push forward and go beyond their own personal boundaries.