BA (Hons) Illustration graduate Meria Palin talks about introducing the Fitz Families activity sessions to her home country of Finland.

My name is Meria Palin and I'm an illustrator - I graduated from Cambridge School of Art. During my illustration studies I volunteered for two years in the Fitzwilliam Museum as an illustration student helping and inspiring young children to draw at the Family First Saturdays activity sessions. It was fascinating to see how children and parents are able to learn in a fun but sophisticated way in the museum, simply with ordinary pencils. After graduating I moved back to my hometown Helsinki in Finland. Inspired by the experiences gained at the Fitzwilliam Museum I wanted to bring the magical drawing workshops to Finnish families as well, getting the Fitz Families to go international!

Fortunately the Finnish Museum of Natural History, which is an independent research institution functioning under the University of Helsinki, was willing to co-operate with me and since the half-term in October the drawing workshops have taken place approximately every weekend, both on Saturdays and Sundays.

The exhibitions at The Finnish Museum of Natural History are very exciting and one of the aims of the drawing workshops is to get children to chill out in an interactive way. Every weekend the workshop has a different theme: birds and feathers, traces of animals, creepy insects etc. The visitors are welcome to have a look and touch the stuffed animals borrowed from the collections. They are encouraged to see and feel the differences between animals, for example how soft the fur of a fox is compared to the fur of an elk, or how smooth the feathers of an eagle owl are compared to the feathers of a swan. In other words the visitors are encouraged to get inspired before they start to draw from observation. I personally feel something achieved when I see a whole family drawing, in three generations: children, parents and grandparents. This is just fantastic!

During the half term in February over one thousand people per day visited The Finnish Museum of Natural History which made the drawing workshops very busy.

All photos by Meria Palin - please click to enlarge.

 

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