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Last week, I co-hosted an art and music workshop with my friend, the talented musician, Eloise Garland, at the PACE Centre in Buckinghamshire. This educational charity provides specialist support and therapy for children with motor disorders.
To coincide with the fifty-year anniversary of the space race, inevitably the theme of the workshop was about the spaceman conquering new worlds from his starship.
The five things I learnt as an artist are as follows:
1. You should be able to quickly create a picture of a spaceman in outer space during the timeline of the David Bowie song, 'Space Oddity' as it plays out in the background (ie produce your artwork in 4 minutes and 33 seconds).
2. Your presentation skills must be up to scratch when you talk about the subjects in your picture (eg the spaceman and the planets).
3. When you talk to the audience, make sure you are making eye contact with them, so you are engaging with your listeners.
4. Make the best of your art materials handed to you. I was handed egg tempura paint, which I haven't used in many years, but it does create bright colours.
5. Engaging with all the children at the workshop is very important. Encouraging them to add some glitter to their paintings makes their work look magical. When interaction creates progress in workshops, this is very encouraging to see.
The charismatic violinist is Eloise Garland, who took these pictures of me in action...and to whom I am very grateful.
Eloise and I have had a lot of fun together, which is what a good workshop is all about. Hopefully, your workshops will be just as fun as ours.