Maisy:
I was blown away with everyone's enthusiasm and creativity in the way they interpreted the stories - especially for those who’s first time it was trying something like this.
Quotes from participants“had a blast at the illustration workshop…unleashing creativity and learning new skills”
“really wanted to get into illustration this year, took the opportunity to partake in the workshop which allowed me to explore new approaches to drawing”
For our final workshop of the Town of Culture series, illustrator and animator Maisy Summer hosted an illustration workshop at Hat Works Museum.
The workshop, aimed at budding illustrators with any level of experience, saw Maisy share her Elsie Plant animation for Hat Works’ Factory Floor gallery and how she uses both physical and digital archives as inspiration in her work. Maisy then used this approach to guide the group in a series of drawing prompts, illustrating other stories from within the museum’s archive.
After warming up with some ‘hat block drawing tasks’ the group selected a character from Hat Works’ archive. With a short bio, portrait and some other related images, the participants selected a key character with a hatting connection and used these archival info packs as their illustration inspiration for the afternoon.
Maisy took the group through her approach to illustrating from the archive, searching for keywords, themes or imagery that can help to tell the story while the group drew from their chosen characters' story using a range of materials and approaches. With Maisy’s guidance, the group created a wallpaper of their archival stories and illustrations around the walls of Hat Works’ newly opened Making Space.
Many of the workshop participants had a creative practice or wanted to develop their drawing knowledge under Maisy’s guidance and this workshop was an opportunity to build on their illustrative approach using archives and collections in a new way.
