Year 11 Art students visit the National Portrait Gallery in London

Posted: Monday, January 16, 2012

The IGCSE art students together with Mrs Ridout, Mr Dalton and Miss Thompson spent a very pleasant afternoon in London on Saturday, visiting the National Portrait Gallery just off Trafalgar square. Part of the student's coursework requires that they visit an Art gallery to view original artwork and that they create work associated with it.

The students have been studying portraits recently and they have been asked to do a self-portrait as their final task. Their set work for the afternoon was to enjoy the gallery first of all, then to copy a portrait of their choice from the original, as well as a figure drawing if they had time. The results are very pleasing. Two students copied a portrait of William Shakespeare, one a copy of a particularly sensitive drawing of Charlotte Bronte the novelist, by her brother Patrick Branwell Bronte and one student copied the detail of the face of Prince Charles by Bryan Organ (1980) as well as the figure of Diana- Princess of Wales by the same artist.

When the work in the Gallery was done the students had free time to get something to eat. Guess where most of them went? - - - - Chinatown! which is not far from Trafalgar square. So, stocked up with noodles, cup cakes and doughnuts we made our way back to the bus which picked us up at the bottom of Haymarket street. Everyone was on time and the day had been a real success.