• dewentartprizeHey! If you read this blog often, you may well be into drawing, so why not have a go at entering the inaugural Derwent Drawing Prize?

    The Prize is open to all living British and international artists over the age of 18 years old on 1 July 2013 and there’s a total of £8750 in prize money. Closing date is 11:59PM ON 1 JULY 2013.

    You can use any pencil including water-soluble, pastel, graphite, charcoal or colouring pencils on any 2 or 3 dimensional support.

    KEY DATES
    1 July 2013: Deadline for entry
    15 July 2013: All artists notified of first stage selection process
    w/c 9 September 2013: Delivery of work
    16-21 September 2013: Exhibition opens to public
    18 September 2013: Private View and Prize Winners announced
    October – December 2013: Exhibition tour

    The work selected for exhibition must be available from September to 31 December 2013.

    Let me know if you win!

  • spellingAs English children prepare for their new spelling and punctuation tests, It makes me wonder about the outcome of all this testing.

    The testing of children is one-sided and far too academic. Where are the art exams for eleven year olds? The music exams? The interpersonal skills exams, the cooking, the athletic, the talking and the reading for pleasure exams? These are all real skills in life that are ignored by those academics and politicians who run education and wish everyone to be like them and damn them if they aren’t.

    Those who excel in real life skills are taught by the education system that they are failures, that spelling and punctuation is all that matters, followed closely by maths and the cold analysis of text. Fail in those and you are a failure.

    If those who excel in tests – those who go on to become politicians, set the tests and run education – were made to sit tests in art, drawing, gymnastics, football, astronomy, fashion, music and any number of relevant subjects, they would also know what it is like to be deemed a failure at the age of eleven.

    I am all for good spelling and punctuation, but this comes with culture. If correct spelling and punctuation are expected and rewarded, then the achievement levels will rise. If it is made the subject of do or die testing – for the school as much as for the pupil – then for every happy smiling face on results day, there will be a crying, shame-faced failure, stigmatised for the rest of their lives.

    “I’m no good at spelling,” they’ll say in their defence. “Look I’ve got a certificate to prove it!” And so the path of their lives is set for them by those to claim to have their best interests at heart.

    Neuroscience is showing us daily how different we all are, how some just see the world in a different way to others. The internet is changing the way everything is done. New, previously unheard of skills are demanded daily, and yet academics are obsessed with preserving tests relevant to the age of coal and steam.

    Let us have a level playing field. If you are not wired up for perfect spelling or number-crunching, let it be possible to show how amazingly you are wired up for the things in which you excel – the very skills that the world needs now.

  • FeetSmallYouTube Follower, JSWHISS asked me to draw feet this week. I think hands are the hardest, but now I’m not so sure. I think I’ve been in denial about feet. If I can, I draw feet off the page or hide them behind something in the foreground, as that’s a lot simpler.

    I generally find that if in doubt, I go to see what the Ancient Greeks did as they really knew how to draw and make it simple. That’s what I did when I was drawing my Olympia books that I show in the video.

    If you were thinking of getting one or two copies, it really helps support this website and my drawing videos if you use the Amazon Links below. Thanks.