This post shares how Paula Briggs and Sheila Ceccarelli from AccessArt and Kate Noble from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, enabled teachers to make sketchbooks and explore them as a physical space to connect and collect ideas and observations from museum collections.
Engineering Sketchbooks
This session followed on from Thoughtful Drawing and Mark Making in the Armoury and Using Sketchbooks, Drawing and Reflective Tools in the 20th Century Gallery.
Back in the Education Room at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, teachers started by gathering their collection of drawings from the galleries and a selection of paper. They were then given quick demonstrations on how to make a sketchbook and got to work.
Paula and Sheila demonstrated how to make a sketchbook by either folding or binding paper together.
Participants were provided with a range of materials and loved the physicality of the session. They were encouraged to think out of the box and find engineered solutions for how their books might look, feel, open and close, the scale of them and how the pages might work together.
Teachers were inventive and playful in their approaches and many used the drawings from the galleries to create new sketchbook pages by tearing and folding them.
Teachers enjoyed playing with combining different sizes and shapes of paper.
Many thanks to the teachers who participated in this InSET training session for sharing their process with AccessArt and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Many thanks to Pink Pig Sketchbooks for their generous donation. of sketchbooks to AccessArt.
Thank you to Kate Noble for facilitating the session and to Ali for her support.
Photographs by Sheila Ceccarelli.
UK Charity AccessArt created this resource in collaboration with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
AccessArt has over 850 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.
AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.
We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.
Related Posts
Teachers Explore ‘Line and Shape’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge with AccessArt
See all the blog posts from AccessArt’s InSET in collaboration with the Fitzwilliam Museum. Find top Museum Education practice with practical, hands on learning in Fine Art disciplines including: drawing, printmaking, sketchbooks, collage and sculpture.
Making Sketchbooks: An Introduction
Simple Approaches to Making Sketchbooks by Paula Briggs
Artist Aurora Cacciapuoti Introduces Japanese Bookbinding
Artist Aurora Cacciapuoti demonstrates, step by step, how to bind a sketchbook
