The galleries of the Manx Museum were filled with artists and illustrators, after a local arts group held a creative workshop session during the weekend.

The Isle of Man Drawing Club held their first meeting of the year at the museum on Saturday afternoon, and around 30 people took part, taking part in sketching and drawing exercises, under the eye of organiser Kim Graziano.

The group were set a number of warm-up tasks over the first hour of the workshop, including creating 10 one-minute sketches and blind contour drawing, before being let loose to wander through the musuem, picking their favourite exhibits to sketch.

’We spent the first hour in the natural history gallery, which was a great place to start, as they have so many different things to see there,’ said Kim.

’The one-minute sketches, where you just spend a minute drawing something and then move on to another, are a really great way for people to warm up and get themselves going, and it helps to break that paralysis that you can get when you first go to draw something.

’Then we did something called "blind contouring", where you focus entirely on the object you are looking at, and not at what you are drawing, and just have your hand move across the page, and follow the shape of what you are looking at. It really encourages the connection between the pen and the brain.

’It was great to do that at the natural history gallery, as there are those amazing skeletons hanging from the ceiling, which made for some interesting drawings.

’Then the group went around and drew what they wanted, with the idea that they drew six different objects, rather than spend an hour just concentrating on one.’

The popular drawing club is currently without a regular base, after they lost the use of their former home at Noa Bakehouse.

The group aims to meet twice a month, and is on the look-out for another venue.

’We normally have around 50 people turn up for our meetings, which normally involves life-drawing, which is something we concentrate on a lot,’ said Kim.

’If anyone has a space that can accommodate 50 people, with food and drinks available, please feel free to get in touch!’

For details of forthcoming events, and to get in touch with Kim, go to the Isle of Man Drawing Club Facebook page

by Mike Wade

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