ANORAK volunteering

I was recently lucky enough to be able to spend three days working with Cathy and some members of the Anorak team at the Drawing Imaginarium Festival, based on children's illustration, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

It was a very busy period but I enjoyed every second. I also met some third year Illustration students there so I was able to get lifts with them and pick their brains about what to expect over the next couple of years, which was really interesting.

My tasks varied on each day, but in brief they were:

Day 1:
- First task was to wallpaper a small shed so that children could draw on the walls- this was a lot more difficult than it sounds! I ended up getting better over practise though and it taught me that I can do most things if I give it a go!
- Cutting out tens of guitar shaped pieces of card, sticking together signs and organising materials for the kids to use was one part of the preparation
- I also undertook general organisation tasks such as general set up of the tent, arranging stalls and tables and hanging banners and bunting

Day 2:
- After helping finish off the set up in the morning I spent the first hour in the 'greenhouse' helping and encouraging children to experiment with pens and card to see what plants and creatures they could make for the greenhouse
- I then moved inside and helped the BLOOP team with their Imaginarium Aquarium through talking to children and helping them pick out materials and ideas
- I also helped at the other stalls such as painting (Which involved constantly cleaning!) and the musical instrument stall
- Near the end of the day I also started distributing and organising paintings the kids had done so that it would be easy for the parents to find the right ones when they came back to collect them

Day 3:
- The day started by moving all of the material and tables from the tent to inside, as the weather was poor, but since there were a lot of us helping, this didn't take too long
- I then spent most of the day running the guitar stall, helping children to paint their own guitars as well as sorting materials for them to use. Once we ran out of the guitar shapes we then developed some makeshift guitars, then once they ran out, some 'ukeleles' from the materials we had
-After we ran out of 'ukeleles' we moved onto maracas, and I taught children how to make them and then aided them during the crafting
- At the end of the day we all cleared the space, which only took around an hour.

WHAT DID I THINK?
I loved the experience and not only did I really enjoy working with kids in such a creative way, but I found it so inspirational to be around so many creative people, from students at different universities to practicing professionals. One person who I found particularly inspirational was Louise Lockhart, whose work I had admired for a long time. I found talking to her gave me a fresh perspective on ways to work in an illustrative manner in the real world. I also think it is really good that I have made these connections fairly early on in my course, and I would love to work more with the Anorak team over my time at LCA

I was also invited to help at the festival once it tours to London at the end of this month, which is really exciting! I will be staying with my brother for two nights whilst the festival runs.