The gallery has just hosted a week of Big Draw events. Some 60 school children, including those picture above from Ampleforth College and, below, from Pocklington School attended intensive drawing sessions during the week. 
And on Saturday we opened up the event to the public. Children aged from babies to their teens all picked up pencils and started sketching my paintings with enthusiasm. 
I was very impressed with the quality of all the work produced. The events are part of a nationwide campaign to promote the importance of drawing: the way it helps you to look intently at your surroundings and the way it can improve your understanding of what you see.
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin, we decided to make the natural world the theme of our Big Draw event and we gave people skulls and feathers as props to sketch.
I was particularly impressed with the confidence that the children showed in tackling their subjects. They were not afraid to fill the page, a reflection I'm sure of the way in which art teaching has improved in schools over the years.
The school children took their sketches back to their classrooms to work up and will be back next month to show me the results. I look forward to it. I plan to award the best Young Wildlife Artist of the Year. 
