“I’m going to treat you the same as the Grade 1s and 2s I sometime teach” said Peter, at the beginning of the workshop yesterday. Sixteen potential artists from all corners of the ABC in East Perth sat, now slightly nervously, in the foyer and looked up at this – it must be said – somewhat manic artist. We’d been living with his art on walls around the building for the week and were keen to have a go ourselves.
“I’ll start with cartooning, ” says Peter “but remember I came out of the womb with a pencil in my hand so I draw quickly.” He drew two circles with dots in the middle. “I always start with the eyes, and the only decision I make is big or small. And the rest kind of draws itself…”
Well it did for him – suddenly there was a man on the whiteboard, and then a hippo in underpants, and another throwing up with bits of vomit flying from his mouth (“The kids love it when I draw this”, Peter explains).
“The second thing to do is put in the emotion.” And with one line – we saw happiness, sadness, anger and suspicion…
We drew cartoons for a while… some of them were quite good. The next exercise was harder. We drew a basic skeleton of a person – front on and side on – and then put another sheet of paper over the top and filled in the body around them – you can see the skeletons on the right behind Peter’s head in the top photo. We practiced bodies.
And then the big challenge. We were to draw the person opposite without taking our pen off the paper. This was hard. Some even tried side on views. Really hard. But some of the drawings ending up looking like the person. Some of us were surprised they had a passing resemblance.
All agreed it was a great workshop and thank you Peter for entertaining us while encouraging our inner artists into the light. The next event for ABC staff will be an “ABC Archibald”. Our drawings will be on display and staff members will be encouraged to vote for their favourite. The prize – a bottle of champagne.
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Portrait artist Peter Kendall is spending his Artopia residency getting a fly-on-the-wall look at the ABC - turning his experiences at the East Perth studios into a sketch book and blog of ABC staff going about their daily tasks.
Peter Kendall is a full time professional artist living in South Perth and well known for his portrait and abstract painting and children's books.
This guy makes it seem all too simple. You’ve got to love someone that can make you turn a stick-man into a colleague in no time flat (even if your colleague takes your artwork as a personal insult).