Drawn together by a love for art…Burrowes School ends five-week ‘summer’ course

Aug 25, 2014 News

A stay-at-home mom, a construction worker and science student with aspirations of becoming a doctor were among eleven art lovers who were tutored in the finer points of drawing and painting, through a five-week course at the Burrowes School of Art.
The group was tutored by Dawne Isaacs-Mc Kenzie, who has been conducting courses in ceramics, painting and drawing at the Burrowes School, located at Carifesta Avenue.

Art tutor Mrs. Dawne Isaacs-Mc Kenzie

Mrs. Mc Kenzie explained that the course was for beginning students, and admitted that teaching her charges was sometimes challenging.
“Everybody was an individual in their right…sometimes it was a little challenging because you had to deal with them individually, especially the younger ones.” According to the tutor, some students occasionally wanted to skip the basic techniques, but she insisted that these be learnt.
She singled out 14-year old Ashley St. Aubyn as one of her most promising students.
“She’s a quick learner; I did not have any problems teaching her. You teach her a new technique, and you would find her working on it until she got it right.”
The youngest student was 13.
All of the students stated that it was a love for art and a knack for drawing that motivated them to enroll.
North Georgetown Secondary student Ashley St. Aubyn says she has been drawing “for a long time,” and spends much of her spare hours sketching images that she sometimes downloads from a computer. The budding artist plans to enroll in the Burrowes School of Art diploma course.
Nineteen-year-old Kevin Samaroo is a construction worker, but he’s been obsessed with drawing since he was a child. He says some of the techniques he learned included colour blending and working with charcoal and pastels.
Kevin says that he’s received a lot of encouragement to pursue a career in art, and plans to enroll in either a one-year or diploma course.
For Michel Swanston-Nurse, sketching has always been a “hobby”, and art was one of the subjects she took as a Caribbean Exams Council (CXC) student. But the busy, stay-at-home mother hadn’t picked up a sketch pad in almost 25 years when she decided to enroll in the five-week course.

Budding artist Ashley St. Aubyn

“I said ‘let me take up something that I enjoy doing.”
She was a bit apprehensive as to whether she still had the skills but found that she still had the love for drawing and the gift for sketching and painting was still there.
Among the techniques she learnt was working with the fast-drying acrylic paints and she now wants “to find the time to do other courses.”
Sixteen-year-old St. Joseph Secondary student Juanita Jordan is a science student who is preparing for sixth form, and a possible career as a doctor or scientist.
But like her colleagues, she was drawn to art and sketching from an early age; a gift she says she got from her mother. “When I was in Third Form, I had planned to choose art as one of my CSEC subjects, but art was not available as a subject at the time at school.”
But Juanita recalled that a teacher, who was impressed by her sketches, suggested that she enroll at the Burrowes School of Art. Her maternal grandmother ensured that she enroll in the five-week course.
A smiling Juanita said she found out that she still had a lot to learn.
“At first you thought you knew to draw, but then you end up learning more, such as cross hatching ( a method of line drawing to create the illusion of shade and texture); and how to shade in two different directions to get dark colours faster, and about the type of papers and pencils you should use.”

Shafeek Khan, 13

The versatile student also enjoys creative writing and is considering enrolling in a course in illustrating.
Thirteen-year-old Shafeek Khan was one of the youngest participants and said that he loved to draw “for as long as I can remember.” He said he uses art as a way to “getting rid of boredom.”
The five-week course began in July 21 and concluded last Friday. Students paid a $12,000 enrollment fee.