El Blog

We have asked Montse Morales to write a text about the Big Draw. As someone who has known the Big Draw since its early days in London, she had been looking for an institution that wanted to bring the Big Draw to the city, and it was she that offered us the idea, made us understand it, and encouraged us to go ahead with it.

Montse is a psychologist and professor of Visual and Plastic Arts Education; responsible for the art section of the children’s and youth’s magazine Cavall Fort and coordinator of the Urban Culture blog of the Master’s Degree in Environmental Intervention from the University of Barcelona, from where she has carried out numerous studies about topics related to childhood and the city.

Workshop “News of the world”

She also describes herself as someone who has spent “half her life surrounded by children with pencils and colours in their hands, encouraging them to look, to draw, to express themselves and to get close the world of art so as to discover the emotions, mysteries and wisdom that the works of art, the museums, the towns and the cities hide”.

Thank you very much Montse, without your passion and knowledge the “festa del dibuix” wouldn’t have been possible!

Emotions on the tip of a pencil
What can you say about a project that has become a reference event in the city of Barcelona in just four years?

What can be added when a project in its first edition, in 2010, was distinguished with the Drawing Inspiration Awards, in the category of “European Trailblazer Winner”, in an event in the headquarters of the British Museum of London?

Well, maybe, that the Big Draw, la festa del dibuix, is something more than an opportunity to experience the pleasure of drawing. It is feeling the emotion of being inspired by creating a meaningful mark.

Workshop “Portrait of your family”

Let’s go over the history
The Big Draw is an annual celebration with drawing in the starring role.  It is an event open to the big and small, in which different artists propose and stimulate activities related to drawing.

It originates from the United Kingdom, where it has been celebrated each year in the month of October for more than a decade, and from where it has been spread all over the world and has settled down strongly in Barcelona by the hand of the Museu Picasso.

The Barcelona proposal has connected a wide range of public that has let itself get caught up in the singularity of the “Festa del dibuix” (the drawing party), because they know each edition will be unique and different, but without losing it characteristic features.

The essential features of the Big Draw are defined in the foundational objectives of the project created by The Campaign for Drawing, the promoting organisation.  Some general goals that highlight the value of drawing as a way of expression and learning, beyond the personal skills and that promotes the practice of this language, as a tool for learning how to look, know and understand better everything that surrounds us.

Workshop at Palau de la Música Catalana

The Big Draw in Barcelona
The Museu Picasso integrates and makes all these principles visible with a proposal which is extended to the entities of the neighbourhood, so as to give the event greater strength and sense.  Therefore, the past four years in a row, on the third Sunday of the month of October, to coincide with the event taking place in the other cities around the world but also to celebrate Picasso’s birthday, the Museu Picasso invites people of all ages to enjoy the power of drawing, by participating in workshops led by various professionals from the field of creation.

Workshops that each year offer new inspirations and new ways of delving into the functions of drawing, which as Eileen Adams points out (Power Drawing), are those exercised by perception, communication, invention and action.

The success of the Barcelona festivity lies in the rigorous approach behind the proposal, in the enthusiasm of the artists chosen for each edition and in the diversity and quality of the activities. And also in the offer of activities for everyone, not only aimed at the children and family public; in the innovative ways of making use of drawing, avoiding repetition and adding the possibility of discovering and rediscovering the values of the places where they were carried out.

Workshop at La Seca Espai Brossa

The team of the museum is the soul of the Big Draw Barcelona and has succeeded in interpreting extremely well the sense and significance of the project, highlighting the fact that the proposal goes deeply into the intangible values of the Big Draw, which are many, by offering significant experiences that go far beyond a specific moment.

Possibly all of this is what makes the Big Draw in Barcelona special. And I would like to say so in big bold letters, like those which have filled and characterized this edition of 2013. For many years I had imagined the Big Draw in my city, the dream has come true and now I have the privilege and pleasure of letting myself become surprised each year by the creativity of the proposal and to discover that the Big Draw Barcelona is an integrating, inclusive and accessible festa for everyone.

Montserrat Morales
The art of looking

Related links
Big Draw, la Festa del Dibuix 2013
Big Draw 2013 = creativity + enjoyment + participation
Photo Album
TEA: drawing as… thinking, expression, action