Last year as a lead up to the Tom Roberts Festival I took four workshops with primary and secondary school students from Inverell and some of the surrounding towns.

The Primary School workshops were held at Ross Hill Public School in Inverell. Children of varying ages got together and we had some wonderful times creating, in the first instance, self portraits, using techniques such as 'blind drawing' feeling the curves of the face and measuring distances of the features by using the hands. Drawing a single line on paper of the person opposite and collaging a self portrait using words and picturescombined with the above techniques to make a final statement that gave the viewer a great dealof information about the portrait.

The second workshop gave the students a chance to draw out of doors and again combine the information they recorded to make an informative picture of their surroundings.

The third workshop covered drawing a still life arrangement and collaging and enhancing their final work.

Finally the children learned to make an exact copy of a chosen picture by squaring up.

The final results of all their hard work was marvellous and displayed a great deal of talent. I do hope you have the opportunity to see the results during the Tom Roberts Festival.

	Schools Workshops in 2005 Students hard at work