Jenni Jones: ***** “Attic Studios is a great place for all, Elsie will bring out the inner artist in anyone!”

From the Bangkok Patana News Letter:

Studio Visit – Curriculum Extension in Art

Posted on 26 February 2010 by Caroline Green, Secondary Art Coordinator in Secondary

Selected art and design students were offered the opportunity to go on a trip to a local artist’s gallery here in Bangkok. The students were identified as being exceptionally skilled in Art and this experience gave the students a chance to meet and work with someone who pursues art as a profession.

Elsie Evans is an established Bangkok-based artist who has her own studios in Sukhumvit. Elsie has taught numerous painting and drawing ECAs here at school and has produced some challenging work. She has a working relationship with the school and has an excellent rapport with the students.

We invited Elsie to work with selected students to push the curriculum boundaries and introduce an experimental and fresh approach. Elsie has enriched the core curriculum and raised awareness of the unique and significant impact that the arts make to our world. She has also and expanded pupils’ appreciation of the valuable role that artists play in society. In this workshop students developed skills in painting with oils and investigated composition through direct painting. The following students took part in this activity Phenporn Chuleeprasert (10C), Araya Boonbandansook (11S), Sirintra Pattaramalai (11S) and Semone Bunnag (13D)

Semone Bunnag (Jai) has written a short paragraph to sum up the experience.

“Aside from the chance to miss a period or two of lessons, I can say with confidence that the experience was worth far more than 120-minutes of class time. As an old student of Elsie Evans, I know for a fact that her approach to teaching allows her students to ‘loosen up’. What I mean is not a therapeutic effect (though it is possible), but rather that her sessions give one an opportunity to discover an individual artistic style.

When I first saw Ploy, Haina and Tan’s warm up drawings I could tell they were a bit unsure of how to keep up with Elsie’s 80-second charcoal still-life exercise; but I can say I saw a definite improvement after only 10 minutes! As a senior, I rarely have the chance to see the work of younger students, but I was thoroughly impressed with their adaptability and prowess at their ages.

However, the course cannot ‘teach’ you to make a masterpiece. In fact, nobody can.

But what it can do is give you the tools, inspiration and the opportunity to make that masterpiece happen; and for anyone pursuing the arts or even art in general, there is nothing else more valuable than that self-found integrity. Many attend Elsie’s studio sessions, ranging from young children to adults and she easily adapts the lessons for both experienced and casual artists. Although only for a day, I am grateful on behalf of my younger peers that they had this exposure and am certain they have not returned as they had left.”