Program / Event Details

Audience: High school students
Duration: 3 days (5–6 hours/day)
Focus: Process over perfection

---

Workshop Intention (for students)

In this workshop, we stop trying to draw “correctly.”
Instead, we draw and paint from movement, memory, and touch, then cut our own paintings into pieces and rebuild them into new images.

Mistakes become material.

---

DAY 1 — Drawing Without Looking

Morning: Letting Go of Control

Warm-up exercises

• Blind contour drawing:

  • students draw their hand, shoe, or face without looking at the paper

• One-minute drawings with continuous lines

• Drawing with the “wrong” hand

Discussion (short):

• What happens when we stop trying to be perfect?

• How does the body remember shapes?

---

Midday: Painting Without Looking

Painting exercises

• Large paper on tables or walls

• Students paint:

  • with eyes closed

  • looking only at the subject, not the paper

  • using big gestures and limited colors

• Tools:

  • brushes, sticks, sponges, hands

Key rule:
👉 No erasing, no restarting.

---

Afternoon: Creating Raw Material

• Students make many paintings (not one “good” one)

• Emphasis on:

  • rhythm

  • repetition

  • emotional marks

• Paintings dry and are kept as material, not finished works

End-of-day reflection:

• Which marks feel alive?

• Which ones feel uncomfortable (and why)?

---

DAY 2 — Cutting, Fragmenting & Gathering Patterns

Morning: Cutting the Paintings

Introduction:

• Cutting is not destroying — it’s transforming.

Students:

• Cut their paintings into:

  • shapes

  • strips

  • organic fragments

• Sort pieces by:

  • color

  • energy

  • texture

---

Midday: Gathering Patterns from Clothes

Pattern exploration

• Students observe:

  • their own clothes

  • classmates’ clothes

• Activities:

  • quick blind drawings of fabric patterns

  • rubbings of textures

  • tracing repeated motifs

• Optional:

  • bring small fabric scraps from home

  • photograph patterns and redraw them

Background-making

• Students create large backgrounds using:

  • painted fabric patterns

  • repeated marks

  • layered color fields inspired by clothing

---

Afternoon: First Collages

• Students begin collaging:

  • painted fragments onto patterned backgrounds

• Focus on:

  • balance

  • movement

  • letting images “float”

• No glue yet for final decisions — pin or lightly tape where possible

---

DAY 3 — Building Meaning & Finishing

Morning: Final Composition

• Students commit to compositions

• Glue down layers

• Add:

  • drawing on top

  • paint washes

  • stitching lines (drawn or real thread if possible)

Key idea:
👉 The image grows slowly, like a landscape.

---

Midday: Titles & Stories

Writing exercise

• Students write:

  • a title

  • 3 sentences starting with:

    • “This image feels like…”

    • “The patterns come from…”

    • “When I wasn’t looking, I found…”

---

Afternoon: Sharing & Mini-Exhibition

• Works are displayed together

• Students walk around silently first

• Group discussion:

  • What surprised you?

  • How did cutting change your painting?

  • What did not looking give you?

---

Materials Needed

• Large paper (newsprint + heavier paper)

• Acrylic or tempera paint

• Brushes, sticks, sponges

• Scissors

• Glue sticks / matte medium

• Fabric scraps (optional)

• Pencils, charcoal

---

Learning Outcomes

Students learn to:

• Trust their instincts

• Accept imperfection

• See mistakes as possibilities

• Build complex images from simple gestures

• Understand pattern as identity and memory

---