Professional Development Workshop

McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Victoria

I  volunteer at the McClelland Gallery which in itself is a great experience. Teaching kids to enjoy art in the Education Department of the Gallery has opened up my options for teaching in the future as well as giving me some great times enjoying how creative kids can be.

The Gallery, to help us be better teachers, supplied a professional training session which I did today. It usually costs others to attend but as volunteers, we are supplied the days for free.

Today we had a morning with the exhibiting artist doing observational drawing and in the afternoon, we had an intensive session about special needs kids and taking care of our own needs as teachers. It was very hands on, which I haven’t photographed (sorry) but included painting eyes closed, sculpting in clay (I did photograph that) eyes closed and expressive intuitive drawing eyes closed.

The drawing was of the HUGE nude male sculpture in the gallery, which we were asked to in context to the room, compared to things and people around it. We had 45 minutes during which I did three sketches. I have included all three here, they were done using a fine liner on plain white cartridge paper and all are around A4 in size.

This workshop is certified so another certificate to hang on the studio wall!

So, in case you may be wondering why I am talking about this, it is to express how volunteering can have benefits that you may not think about initially, just as I didn’t. I thought I would just use my Certificate IV in Training and Assessment rather than letting it go to waste, and maybe get out of the studio and network a bit with other artists. I have gained so much more than that, so it is a big win-win for the gallery, the kids and me.

It has put a bit of pressure on me as I am trying to get assessments done and take care of domestic duties, but I feel when it is important, I can make the time.

A nice additional thing for us attending is we have lunch, and morning and afternoon tea supplied, I took a pic of one of those!