On Wednesday, October 3, a group of Harvard freshmen participated in a drawing workshop in the Sackler Museum. Led by Senior Museum Educator Corinne Zimmermann and organized in conjunction with the Freshman Dean’s Office, the workshop invited students to engage with works of art through drawing and discussion.

Students warmed up with a freehand mark making exercise in the modern and contemporary galleries before discussing the uniqueness of their own “visual voice.” Next students went to the second floor to sketch the lines of a Han dynasty horse without lifting pencil from paper. On the fourth floor, students paired up and sat back-to-back so one student could describe an object while the other drew it solely from their partner’s words. At the end of the workshop, students free-sketched an object of their choosing.

The workshop closed with an apt quote from painter Justin Beckett: “I could paint these mountains the way they look, but it isn’t how I see them.” How do you see works of art in our collection?

See photos from the Freshman Draw event on Flickr.