Ritva Voutila School Visits & Curriculum Support

"...enthusiastic and highly successful performances...expertise and professionalism are also highly appreciated."
Henchke Primary, Wagga Wagga

"... child involvement well orchestrated and meaningful."
Turvey Park Primary, Wagga Wagga

"...managed to keep the children's attention all through the show...innovative and enthusiastic...a wonderful performance!"
Singleton Public School

Ritva Voutila is an accomplished school performer and holds frequent art workshops. Since 1994 she has toured her school programme throughout Australia to annual audiences of over 20,000 students.

Twice (1999 and 2005) her show has won a Frater Award for Excellence in School Performances from the NSW State Department of Education and Training.

Ritva's school programmes provide excellent curriculum support for all levels of primary and secondary schools.

From the moment the students enter the room to see a smocked artist at an easel, they will be captivated by this programme which will create before their eyes magical illustrations and cartoons. The venue is set up as a studio/exhibition space to recreate the working environment of the artist. On display are the roughs, originals, rejects, art materials and other paraphernalia of an artist/illustrator.

Using examples of her published work, Ritva shows students different approaches, styles and techniques and explains why different texts require different styles of illustration.

While drawing plenty of laughter from the audience with her fun-filled performance, every cartoon, joke and story has a clear point to it, which extends far beyond the scope of art to many other areas of learning. The emphasis is on how to become more creative and how to increase the effectiveness of one's imagination.

SUITABILITY:

DURATION:

COST:

MINIMUM COST
PER SESSION:

TOTAL MINIMUM COST
INCL GST:

TEACHERS' NOTES PROVIDED

K - 6

60 MINUTES

A$4 per student + GST

A$480.00 per session + GST
(120 students or less)

A$528.00

The aim of this workshop is to learn how to integrate text and images into sequential art creatively.

Starting with the basic concept of the familiar cartoon strip, Ritva will then encourage students to find ways of breaking away from the usual cartoon-strip-look. This is not a workshop on how to draw funny cartoons. The main emphasis is on the overall design of the artwork produced, and its originality and artistic quality.

Throughout the workshop Ritva will guide each individual student's work, giving instructions and suggestions on how to improve or make their story and artwork more interesting. She will show how to create mood visually, how to introduce visual variety into their work, and how to pull it all together into one visually and literally satisfying piece of art.

This stimulating workshop integrates writing, design and general art skills, and gives the students an opportunity to work with a practicing artist of many years of experience.

Workshop
90 minutes high school
60 minutes primary school

35 students maximum

Lecture
60 minutes - 100 students maximum

This lecture is aimed for upper secondary art and design students. It is also suitable for teachers and the general public interested in day-to-day activities of a practicing illustrator and fine artist.

The talk centers on real-life case studies. Showing numerous samples of preliminary sketches Ritva explains the various steps of the designing process from the editor's brief through the search of ideas to the final version of the published artwork. Students will learn how to analyse the brief and how to deal with editor's requests for changes. They will learn the importance of adapting their personal illustration style to match the style of the publication, and they will learn the importance of extensive sketching when developing their ideas.