Working with Newcastle College Sixth Form Centre

This January, I’ve been running a series of workshops for sixth formers at Newcastle College Sixth Form Centre (NSFC) in collaboration with Rebecca Christodoulides and David Butler. I was given the opportunity to run one off sessions with the sixth form last year. It’s been lovely curating a series of workshops to fit a purpose/ overarching idea.

These workshops are focused on getting students to loosen up the way they approach painting – thinking in an expressionist manner, using paint liberally and loosely. We’ve started with a session on drawing the figure quickly, to capture its essence in as few strokes as necessary, moving onto a session on acrylic painting where I really pushed the students to see how little indication was needed to convey a reference across to a viewer. The next workshop will tackle oil paint and using it loosely and liberally.

The students themselves have been so wonderful to teach. During the sessions they have been so inquisitive and attentive to everything being said. Equally, when it came to actually producing work in accordance with the various exercises I presented them with, it was evident that every student was truly giving it their full effort. What was most gratifying was to see the clear improvement each one of them had made even within the short session, with unconfident, sketchy marks being swapped out for confident, loose and bold strokes – they really impressed me.

I was inspired by recent Hatton exhibitor Mali Morris and her very loose, free brushstrokes that emphasized the materiality of the paint on the canvases. My own practice has become increasingly expressionist in its approach to painting, and I’ve enjoyed making the viewer work increasingly hard to understand the image they’re being presented with. I’m looking forward to the next session(s) planned with the sixth formers.

Through the LWA workshops, I’ve been able to improve the verbalisation/ explanation of my art-related ideas, and gain valuable experience in teaching in higher education – something I will be pursuing after university.

A big thanks goes out to both David and Rebecca for facilitating these lessons.
Sandy Kiralawella, 3rd year Fine Art student