Julia: Warhol Workshops

Debi and I were particularly busy during June preparing for our workshop at the Ferens which was a major undertaking as in the end there were only the two of us from the studio available to do it. However by enlisting the aid of my son Owen we were able to make a pretty good job of it. The actual workshops took place from Monday 25^th June to Friday 29^th, two days in the Ferens followed by three in Park st. workshops. Our premise for the workshop which was to coincide with the Warhol exhibition was concentrated on portraiture. With only the three of us we decided to include as much experience of differing approaches to portraiture as we could without overstretching ourselves. We were fortunate to discover that the Ferens had organised a long time freelance art worker to help us out for the week. Bill was fantastic and worked well with us whilst still following our lead.

 On the first day we introduced ourselves as artists using power-points about our work and generally broke the ice with the group of students we were working with over the week, 24 in all from schools throughout Hull. It became immediately clear that they were an excellent group who had a specific interest and talent in art. By talking about our own work we were able to give them an insight into how an artist works and realistic impression of the problems that the artist encounters.  I hope we conveyed that the life of an artist is ultimately fulfilling but not an easy option. To engage with art requires commitment and discipline just as much as any other career choice.

We had decided beforehand that we did not want to approach these workshops as a teaching exercise but as an enjoyable experience for all concerned. Within the limitations of time and skill requirements, the work produced by the students was extraordinary. Our first project involved Owen taking photos of all the students as a resource for the ongoing workshops. Initially we worked with collage on the first day which was a fun activity and produced hilarious results showing that the students had a flair for imaginative interpretations of the face.

On the second day at the Ferens we used the images procured on the Monday to project, Owen spent a lot of time the previous evening making sure the images correlated when projected, sufficiently for us to create a fusion of all the student’s faces. This worked extremely well with the projected images simply outlined in felt tips. The resulting large drawing was very interesting and we assured the students it was worthy of display in any contemporary gallery. Their confidence grew and while this event was taking place I engaged the students in making very competent self portraits using small mirrors. They took a very serious approach to drawing themselves quite unlike the previous days collage. The resulting drawing were threaded together reminiscent of the Warhol stitched photographs.

On Wednesday we all met at Park st. and separating the group into two, one group went with Debi to do screen printing while my group joined me in the computer suite to use photo shop to produce magazine covers featuring themselves as artists. The format was referencing Andy Warhols ‘Interview’ magazine and we began by using their photographs to Warholise and ‘superstar’ themselves. The results well exceeded my own preparations as I have very limited skills on photoshop and with the assistance of the park st. technicians we were able to produce very professional looking covers.

It had been our intention to contrast the way hands on screen printing compares with the present days digital technological approach. We did achieve this to some extent but in the end by scanning in the screen prints were able to combine the approaches by dropping monochrome photographic images onto the screen prints. I particularly liked this hybrid effect combining the best of both worlds. I definitely learnt a tremendous amount myself in a short space of time. As the screen prints were completed in my area Debi was freed up to do some very demanding dry point self portraits using their original drawings to work from and this I feel again gave the students a diverse range of experience. All this took place on the Wednesday and Thursday so that by Friday both students and artists were exhausted.

The final day was creating an exhibition of our hard work and gave the students an insight into curation which is normally not done by the artist themselves although they will usually have considerable input into the way their work is displayed. In the afternoon we celebrated by having a brief preview of their work with parents family and teachers and the work was very well received.

EDIT (15/8/2012): The exhibition of this work is now showing in the live art space in the Ferens.