A few words about my final Silver Arts Award project

By Ryan White (age 16)

I conducted a portrait workshop in late June last term. The main purpose of it was for the final project of my Arts Award, in which I had to conduct and review my own leadership event. The focus of my Arts Award was portraits and so the workshop naturally involved them; personally I really enjoy drawing portraits and trying to create the likeness of a person. Through the workshop I aimed to share that passion with my peers.

The workshop included two activities, the main one and a warm up. In the warm up I gave everyone the same reference picture to draw from, as well as a 'help sheet' that I made myself, with steps showing my personal method of drawing faces. The main activity was similar but everyone chose from a set of different pictures I had printed out, I also allowed a lot more time for this activity as it was more about people experimenting freely and just having fun. It took a lot of planning and that paid off. Overall I think the workshop was a success, with a whopping 10 people turning up and some really positive feedback.