| Facts | Over 1000 Big Draw events are scheduled for October 2004. The majority of events are free. The Big Draw holds two world records: the longest drawing in the world(1km) and the greatest number of people drawing at the same time (7,000). |
If you're one of the many who protests that you 'can't draw a thing' then help is at hand. The Big Draw is coming to Cumbria. The Big Draw, now in its fifth year, is a six-year Campaign led by the Guild of St George, the charity founded by John Ruskin in 1871 to create a better world. Ruskin, who lived at Brantwood on the shores of Coniston in the Lake District, believed drawing was the foundation for visual thought, just as speaking and writing is the basis for verbal thought. His writings on drawing were designed not to teach people how to draw, but how to see. Most of The Big Draw events are aimed at families, but campaign Director Sue Grayson says that people of all ages are getting involved. "People are signing up new drawing activities right up to the last moment. We know drawing crosses barriers of age, language and culture - but it's exhilarating to generate this kind of enthusiasm in venues as varied as prisons and stately homes." There's no shortage of people who claim that they 'can't draw' and these events aim to challenge ideas about drawing. Illustrator Quentin Blake is involved with the campaign and says The Big Draw seems to have struck a chord with the nation. "It's as though everybody had been waiting to be told that they are allowed to draw - that it's a normal activity. Perhaps it isn't surprising - we live under a bombardment of manufactured images, and in the face of that we need to be able to draw as a way of discovering the reality of the world about us, as well as the life in ourselves." For a list of Cumbrian events please use the link to the top right of this page. | 
