Honing drawing skills with cultural collections

Drawing workshops run by the University of Melbourne Student Union with Museums and Collections on campus are an important means to hone artistic skills. Students in the workshops visited the Medical History Museum, the Dark imaginings exhibition, the Baillieu Library Print Collection  and the Grainger Museum and drew objects on display, as well as items that had been brought out from storage.

Copying works of art through drawing is an age-old tradition which assists students to acquire and understand the techniques exercised by master artists. Grasping perspective and foreshortening challenges created through displays and gallery spaces is another skill which can be learned.

The students had the opportunity to draw with pencils and experience another medium, that of silverpoint, a method which grew from Medieval manuscripts and which employs the use of a metal stylus on a prepared ground.

Drawing cultural collections is an opportunity for artists to get out of the studio, and for the objects it is an opportunity to come to life through the student’s creative efforts.