Sketching workshop with the Island School Students

I offered to run this workshop as part of my professional practice experience during my stay here in Hong Kong. The help I’d hoped to have from the UWE undergraduates was not possible, as they were due to return to the UK on 4 May. 

When I turned up at the school, seven additional students had asked to come on the trip in addition to the original twenty-one I was originally going to be taking. Twenty-eight 14/15 year olds loose in Hong Kong Park - no pressure!! 

It was quite difficult to get the students to engage at first. I think for a lot of them there aren’t many opportunities to get out. They are taxi-ed or bussed to and from school and with either one or both parents working late HK hours, they entertain themselves (mainly on their phones) for long periods of time. In HK these kids don’t have the opportunity to go out on their own, and if they do they are chaperoned or looked after by and large. Don’t get me wrong, these are nice kids, well behaved ,and happy to do the sketching exercises I suggested - but reluctant to make suggestions or come up with their own ideas.

They all produced some lovely sketches in the park - there’s plenty of potential here for the aspiring artist - a lake full of carp and turtles, a wealth of diverse trees and shrubs all different colours and textures, as well as botanical hot houses and an aviary. And of course there is the backdrop of HK’s iconic buildings - The Bank of China Tower, The twin Lippo Buildings with their climbing koala bear geometry, to name but a few. Some of their work is shown below to give you some idea of how good they were.

The exercise they really seemed to enjoy most was when I got them to draw each other - although some of them insisted on taking photos and then drawing from the phone screen! These kids do everything with their phones, and I guess they’re not that different from kids in the UK in this respect. 

28 kids is a big group to manage, but I did get round all of them and I hope was able to give them some useful advice on drawing which I hope will stay with some of them. They did really like the small A5 sketchbooks I’d brought all the way from the UK for them - result!

By 3.30pm, after Helen had dropped me off near Wan Chai, I was completely exhausted but decided to visit Yau Ma Tei on the way home as its just a stop off the MTR line. That was quite an experience and the polar opposite of HK park. If I have time, I'll cover that in another posting...