For Trips Day 2, the whole of Year 9 got involved in the Blackheath High School Big Draw, an exciting event to celebrate the art of drawing, give students the chance to collaborate, and to develop creative thinking skills through undertaking some unusual and immersive artistic challenges. 

Two main activities ran throughout the day in the Art rooms and the Wollstonecraft Room, with the resulting work forming an evolving exhibition. 

For the first task, students were challenged to respond to the art and architecture of the radical Austrian visual artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser by creating their own black and white ‘cityscapes’. Each student designed and created a detailed square drawing, using a marker pen to explore line, shape and pattern. Each featured a ‘road’ of some configuration, along with specific elements, which linked to other students’ drawings to create one collaborative artwork. Then came the difficult part – working together to construct the final piece by combining twenty individual drawings in the correct configuration. 

Task 2 was inspired by our diverse school community and in particular the wide number of languages spoken by our students. Using typography and different alphabets as a starting point, each student combined layers of white card, mount board and craft foam to create some fabulous abstract tile compositions. Again, the outcomes were combined to produce an impressive large-scale piece. 

Year 9 tackled all of these challenges with great enthusiasm and focus throughout the day. They created some very accomplished and successful work which we intend to display as a celebration of their drawing abilities!