Pinhole Pictures – The Big Draw

Welcome to ‘Pinhole Pictures’, The Big Draw at the University of Lincoln. An exhibition of drawings inspired by images made with the camera obscura.

This year students from Thomas Cowley High School, Spalding Grammar School, Branston Community Academy, and Lincoln College Newark participated in our event.

The Big Draw has returned to the University of Lincoln after a missed year during lockdown. Keen to ensure that no changes in circumstances would prevent our event from going ahead we planned collaborative activities that could take place throughout October and early November in situ ‘in school’ under the guidance of local teachers supported by staff here at the university. The work produced could then be showcased on our Big Draw Blog and with an exhibition here at the University of Lincoln. We wanted an event that would challenge the pupil’s perceptions of what drawing could be, and to encourage them to explore playful creative mark making.

So, what did we do?

We created an event for regional schools based around a ‘marriage’ of art and science. We supplied Camera Obscura lens kits and instructions to participating schools, their pupils then built the cameras from empty Pringles tubes. They then explored what kind of image they could find using the cameras, and using their mobile phones, they photographed the resultant images and printed them out.

Our challenge to them was to then explore and reinterpret these images as drawings through any appropriate media. Be experimental and playful, try stuff, see what happens…

Here are the fabulous drawings made in response to our challenge shown alongside the camera obscura images that inspired them. (All the camera images are shown inverted at this was the original orientation as seen by the artists through the camera when framing their photographs). Click on an image to see it full screen, use your browser’s ‘back’ button to return to this page.

Lincoln College Newark: Year 1 L3 UAL Creative Practice A&D

Thomas Cowley High School

Spalding Grammar School

Branston Community Academy

Make your own camera obscura

Visit Our Exhibition