Juliette Orton

Shortly before all the Coronavirus closures I was lucky enough to see the David Hockney : Drawing from Life exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery in London which was such a treat and featured 150 of his drawings made throughout his life. I saw a previous show of his at the Tate back in 2017 but that was a different collection of works with not so much of a focus on portraits. I have a real admiration for those artists that specialise in portraits, particularly self-portraits. I can clearly remember ‘those’ exercises in my Art classes and let’s just say it was not my forte. I’m sure it is a skill that requires practice but I never had the patience and I was always drawn to a different sort of design but I have the utmost respect for those artists like Hockney that have absolutely ‘cracked it’.      As this pencil self portrait of a 19 year old Hockney shows, even before he attended the Royal College of Art, his creative abilities were evident and he had clearly

DANCING IN THE DARK It is quite commonplace for someone to say that they can’t draw. Whilst I agree that some individuals find it comes to them more easily than others, I take issue with those that are so quick to dismiss it as even a possibility. It saddens me to think that this avenue of creativity is closed to some, or at least, they think it is. Years of teaching design to teenagers has reaffirmed my belief that a large part of the problem is simply a lack of confidence. I don’t mean to make light of it but it really is quite amazing how quickly improvements are made once the initial barrier is broken through. I usually start students off in pairs sitting opposite each other with a sheet of paper and a pen (not pencil) in hand. The idea is to draw the person opposite in a continuous line without looking at the paper - this not only creates a room full of hysterical laughter but it also loosens everyone up and relaxes them into the task. I specify a pen as the default posit