Creativity for Its Own Sake

For nearly two decades, artist and educator Claire Horacek has been at the heart of The Big Draw Festival, working closely with Helen Zihni to come up with exciting creative projects for the school and local community to take part in. From clay sculptures inspired by Aardman Animations to kickboxing drawing sessions and swimming sketchbooks, Claire and Helen’s approach to The Big Draw is playful, full of energy, and "purely exciting" - without any intention of fulfilling any criteria, their Big Draw events are all about creativity for its own sake. 

We caught up with Claire to hear more about her journey, her passion for embedding creativity in education, and what keeps her coming back to The Big Draw year after year.

Hi Claire, thanks so much for chatting with us today. Could you start by telling us a bit about you?

I studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University (now called the Ruskin School of Fine Art without ‘drawing’ which I think is a pity) and spent three great years creating art and playing lots of music. 

I started teaching art by accident really; my inspirational teacher, Arran Willcocks needed me to help cover while one of her colleagues was ill at the sixth form college. So without any qualifications I began teaching GCSE and A-level art. Straight after that, I did my teacher training at Goldsmith’s on the brilliant Art Teachers Certificate course, but instead of getting a job teaching I went to study at the Academy of Fine Art in Prague having been awarded a British Council scholarship. After a few years in Prague, I returned to England and got a job teaching art in Worcester. 

When my children were at primary school, I volunteered to run a Big Draw and the very trusting head Steve Mills paired me up with another like-minded teacher/parent and together supported us in all the crazy Big Draw project ideas we developed since 2006.

I now work as a freelance art educator, artist, professional musician and teacher on the Viola da Gamba. Art and music are equally important to me! 

What keeps you coming back to The Big Draw Festival each year?

I’m passionate about drawing and its importance in children’s development. As someone who has always found expressing themselves in words difficult, particularly at school, drawing is a very important skill which needs to be valued and celebrated. 

It’s great that the Big Draw has an annual theme. I always enjoy bouncing ideas off the theme. It’s good that in the summer holidays when your brain is more relaxed you can think about developing ideas, and everyone is more positive and excited for the beginning of the school year in September. 

September to October is a long time in the school calendar and having a Big Draw project culminating before half term gives everybody something fun to look forward to.

For your Big Draw events in 2024, you incorporated such a variety of activities in response to the theme ‘Drawing in Motion’ - from golf and swimming sketchbooks to kickboxing drawing and kinetic sculptures. It sounds wonderful! How did you go about planning such a diverse programme?

Well, Helen Zihni and I have been coming up with Big Draw project ideas for nearly 20 years and together we found it quite easy really! We just bounce ideas off each other. 

We must have chosen Wednesday as The Big Draw day and that meant school swimming, kickboxing club in the afternoon and golf for Yr3 in the morning. We incorporated what was going on in the school that day and due to the flexibility of the teachers in the school we made it work

We’d love to hear more about the visit from Aardman model maker Claire Drewett - what was her session like, and how did the pupils respond?

Claire is a friend of Helen’s and very kindly agreed to visit the school. She brought a wonderful collection of original Aardman models including a lovely box of Shaun the Sheep faces, Chicken Run models etc. She spent the morning with Yr5 and talked to the children in small groups.  The children drew the models and then in the afternoon created their own sculpture using clay and wire armatures. In the afternoon, the Yr6 class joined in. After school, we had a session open to families and friends. It was totally inspiring for the children to see the original models and to hear Claire’s story of working as a puppet maker. They loved making their own models in response to Claire’s and the Aardman team’s creations.

Your after-school session drew in 120 pupils and families. What makes these community moments so special?

Our sessions for family and friends are always extremely well attended. The families love having the opportunity to explore creatively through a variety of drawing activities. We have families from many nationalities at St George’s and having activities that are not English language dependent means that everybody can take part on their own terms. It’s really lovely to see different generations working together and having fun at school.

Thinking back over the years of Big Draw events, are there any particular standout moments that have really stuck with you?

I think that Helen and I have developed projects that were purely exciting and didn’t fulfil any criteria - just creativity for its own sake.

I must say that my first Big Draw projects were planned as a response to being quite a jaded GCSE and art A-level teacher - my own ‘art beliefs’ were being tested. When we were awarded our first DIA that was a truly exciting moment and then the next year, with our Shape of the Future Big Draw, in 2007 we were awarded a winner’s prize in the Royal Society of Engineering. Being featured in the beautiful DIA winners booklets and CD is a great legacy.

And I’ll never forget the most inspirational Big Draw training day at Somerset House, London on the 27th of July 2006 (I only remember the day because it was our wedding anniversary and I drew a card for my husband there) led by the brilliant Sue Grayson-Ford. Where a group of Big Draw enthusiasts developed ideas - through drawing of course! - towards the September launch. It was open to anyone and I’m so glad I responded to the email and took part. 

Why do you think it’s important that creativity is embedded in the curriculum?

Because for most people, I imagine, they learn best when they are being creative. I certainly switched off in any lesson at school where all we had to do was listen to the teacher or read. ‘Doing’ is very important and finding different ways to develop ideas whether it’s through drawing or writing or making or talking all need to be valued. Some people learn visually and it’s important that the education system and teachers value that.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in organising these kinds of events in a school setting?

20 years ago there weren’t many challenges. We had a Head at the school who supported our ideas. There was money for an after school club, we could employ external artists and the county council gave us grants towards that. All that has stopped now. Helen and I were employed to teach art to the whole school during the teachers’s PPA afternoons and we launched our Big Draws during those afternoons developing ideas as we went. 

Now we have to find external funding to be able to run a Big Draw day at school. We were lucky to get a grant from the Worcester Art Society to support our Drawing in Motion Big Draw day. 

What would your advice be for other schools thinking of taking part in The Big Draw Festival?

Get a small group of enthusiastic teachers or parents together (2 is ideal!) and come up with ideas. It’s probably good when a small group of people come up with individual ideas so that you have a diverse array of activities. I think coming up with one idea for a Big Draw is probably harder. In the early days, Helen and I would swap groups halfway through an activity, without being precious about the end result. I think that is important - we came up with ideas and let the project/projects develop organically. 

One very important thing - please draw from observation or imagination; with any materials on anything but avoid drawing from photographs…. 

Above all enjoy experimenting and having fun with materials - it doesn’t need to be expensive at all!

Thanks so much, Claire!

To find out more about The Big Draw Festival and how you can get involved, click here.