Bp Portrait Award: Inspiring Portraits Yesteryear Teenagers

Inspire a Generation is the official slogan of the Olympic Games.  However inspiring the adjacent generation is non exactly express to sport - it applies to fine art equally well.

Participants inwards BP Portrait Award: Next Generation Taster Sessions, July 2012
Photograph Othello De’Souza-Hartley © National Portrait Gallery

BP is a premier partner of the London 2012 Olympics.  One of the Museum activities associated with the London 2012 Festival - business office of the Cultural Olympiad - is the National Portrait Gallery's BP Portrait Award Next Generation programme which is about:
  • bringing together leading artists with immature people 
    • widening the horizons of immature people 
    • enabling them to participate inwards learning most making art
    • encouraging them to clitoris together with pigment portraits
  • inspiring a permanent artistic legacy.
See my previous post The Next Generation - Portraiture for Teenagers which reviewed the BP Portrait Award Next Generation activities for 14-19 years olds interested inwards fine art together with portraiture.
The Next Generation is a projection run past times the National Portrait Gallery which is all most inspiring 14­-19-year-olds (aka "The Next Generation") most portraiture. It provides dissimilar opportunities for teenagers to come across with together with gain insights from past times BP Portrait Award artists together with to portion their ain artwork.
A Next Generation Taster Session

I late attended a BP Portrait Award: Next Generation Taster Session at the NPG together with this post service is a written report on what happened.

The aims of the Taster Session are to
  • Achieve appointment together with participation - nobody learns unless they're interested!
  • Try out a hit of portrait techniques inwards the Gallery spaces together with prepare an understanding that there's to a greater extent than than 1 means to tape a figure together with brand a portrait
  • Meet artists who take away hold had move inwards the BP Portrait Exhibition
The Facebook Debate

For those who followed the ground on my Facebook page following the final weblog post (prior to comments past times a sure enough indiviudal beingness deleted past times me), hither are the answers to what truly happens.  As I really much suspected, it's really incorrect to criticise the guidance offered past times the NPG and/or to assume that it's always appropriate that immature people follow a traditional atelier approach together with are taught how to clitoris a human face upwardly inwards conventional terms!

The ground for this is that these are immature people who are interested inwards fine art - but they take away hold really dissimilar experiences inwards relation to portraiture.  From what I could reckon a fair lay out of the immature people had piddling prior didactics inwards drawing a head.   Any session thus has to live on geared to involving everybody - whatever their experience or science grade - together with to generate appointment together with participation inside a 3 lx minutes fourth dimension slot which inwards plough is probable to promote time to come engagement.

In this post service I'm including some of the comments from the immature people on the feedback forms which they consummate at the halt of the session.  From these you lot tin deduce the value of the Taster Session from their perspective.
‘I institute it truly useful together with it helped me take away hold an insight into the artworld. I promise to acquire to artschool together with this has broadened my experience of art’
Participant inwards Next Generation Taster Session, 2012
The construction of the taster session

I'm going to depict the means inwards which the 3.5 hours were structured - but outset a comment on how good the immature people engaged with the sessions.

I was truly amazed.  The stride of the session was fast together with furious.  They did half dozen separate exercises together with the grade of appointment was absolutely stunning.  Whereas you lot or I mightiness suspension together with reverberate - or intend inwards advance most the ambit for how nosotros mightiness be embarrassed by our output - the immature people but listened to the instructions together with so got on with it.  The charge per unit of measurement at which they produced move was astonishing.  I was exactly most keeping upwardly with them!

As the Young People's Manager pointed out to me, these are immature people who are fairly committed inwards the outset identify equally they've given upwardly their Lord's Day to come upwardly into London together with pursue a workshop.

BP Portrait Award 3rd PrizeRichie Culver past times Alan Coulson
Oil on wooden board 850 x 950 mm
Alan Coulson (left) with Richie Culver (right)
The session divided betwixt whole grouping activities together with pocket-size grouping activities inwards the gallery.

Three artists who are past times together with electrical flow BP Portrait Exhibition prizewinners were also participating:
They worked alongside Sadie Lee, Grace Adam together with Marc Woodhead - the gallery artists leading the sessions together with pocket-size groups.

Participants inwards BP Portrait Award: Next Generation Taster Sessions, July 2012
© National Portrait Gallery
  1. (15 minutes) An icebreaker involved the whole grouping - including BP Portrait prizewinners - drawing dissimilar aspects of the torso at dissimilar scales on a really large canvass of paper inwards the floor
  2. Three pocket-size groups - each with a workshop leader - working inwards the BP Portrait Exhibition - with xxx minutes for each grouping including transfers betwixt locations
    • Drawing together with cutting out a portrait together with so adding inwards words
    • Creating a novel paradigm from elements inwards ii paintings
    • Creating a tonal drawing using graphite together with an eraser as a drawing implement
  3. (10 minutes) Talk past times the winner of the tertiary prize inwards the BP Portrait Competition - Alan Coulson
  4. (10 minutes) Discussion most Sketchbooks with Simon David together with Hynec Martinec
  5. (10 minutes) Review of move done inwards the session
‘I am to a greater extent than confident. We were told to clitoris inwards the gallery, before I was likewise scared to do this.
Participant inwards Next Generation Taster Session, 2012
I joined 1 grouping for the 3 exercises inwards the gallery to reckon exactly how hard it was to tackle the exercises inwards the express fourth dimension available. You tin reckon my efforts below - together with a longer description of the exercise.
‘It has made me experience I may live on able to prepare equally an artist’
Participant inwards Next Generation Taster Session, 2012
This is a video of participants which explains ii of the projects.  It's by Youth Forum members  who interviewed together with flipcam filmed the participants equally business office of our BP Portrait Award: Next Generation peer filming project.  This celluloid .  One of the Youth Forum members became to live on involved inwards the Youth Forum via BP Next Generation.



Out of the xxx minutes allowed for each grouping I desire to emphasise that at that spot was possibly 20-25 minutes to clitoris inwards each grouping afterwards an explanation together with the fourth dimension required to transfer to the adjacent group

Task 1: Cut out faces together with cutting out words

Derived from Tessa together with the Clay Heads
past times Ruth Murray
The outset group's chore was stimulated by The Skateboarder by Erik Olson

We had to clitoris whatsoever 1 of the faces of portraits inwards a pocket-size department of the exhibition using a marking pen on a canvass of coloured paper.  They so had to cutting out the drawing together with gum it on to a 2d color of paper together with so add together inwards words cutting from a paper to depict the feelings behind the portrait.

I opted for drawing my caput inwards pen together with ink inwards my sketchbook together with so using coloured pencils to dot the colours which I idea were appropriate for the human face upwardly I chose (from Ruth Murray's Tess together with the Clay Heads)

I was amazed at the speed with which people got their drawings down, their cutting out done together with their words chosen - given they had to expect for words inwards a newspaper!  I took the brusk cutting together with exactly wrote words onto my drawing.

I was amazed at how much to a greater extent than you lot looked at the drawing 1 time words were included.

I was amused to hear that this session had been carried out inwards 1 of the before taster sessions with Eric Olsen the creative somebody watching - unbeknown to the grouping leader!  He was patently really gratis most their work!

Task 2: Merge ii paintings into 1 picture

I was belike most pleased with this exercise! The chore was to accept 1 chemical factor of 1 portrait together with add together to it an chemical factor from some other portrait to do a novel image.  I picked ii portraits were they were both using sticks equally vertical elements - together with solely realised equally I started to shade that I'd picked ii plant with lighting patterns which would non merge!

Two portraits merged into 1 drawing
(Left)
(Right)
Task 3: Draw a frozen caput inwards tonal values


This chore focused on Mark Quinn's "Self' which is a sculpture of a caput frozen inwards the artist's ain blood.  This was most developing tonal values using large graphite sticks to shade together with an eraser to make highlights.  Again I was working with a mechanical pencil inwards my sketchbook.  Most of the immature people had never worked inwards this means before.
‘I started thinking differently, trying out novel techniques. I institute that the artists’ move was truly interesting inwards their talk, they shared novel perspectives. ‘Participant inwards Next Generation Taster Session, 2012
Alan Coulson's verbalize was excellent.  The whole gallery stopped together with listened!  He spoke most how he became a portrait creative somebody because somebody had taken him to reckon the BP Portrait Award when he was immature together with how it sparked an involvement inwards portraiture.

Simon Davis had brought some pocket-size studies with him to verbalize most he approached the creation of a portrait together with it was fascinating to handgrip them together with to live on able to reckon his brushwork upwardly close.
‘The artists nosotros met were inspiring.’
Participant inwards Next Generation Taster Session, 2012
More most The Next Generation

If you lot see the BP Portrait Award 2012 Exhibition you lot volition reckon a display of exterior the BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition to showcase the story so far of BP PortraitAward: Next Generation, including plant produced during the Summer Schools.

On the website, www.npg.org.uk/bpnextgeneration, immature people aged 14-19 tin display together with portion their portraits via Flickr and lookout adult man behind the scenes interviews with past times winners of the BP Portrait Award, filmed past times immature people.  Note that are individuals who take away hold non necessarily participated inwards whatsoever of the sessions or workshops at the Gallery.

National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE
Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am – 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am – 9pm (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) 

Recorded information: 020 7312 2463
General information: 020 7306 0055 
Website: www.npg.org.uk 
Underground: Leicester Square/Charing Cross

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