The BV magazine, November ‘22 SCHOOL NEWS
BBC’s Adebanji Alade visits The Gryphon The Gryphon School in Sherborne were recently fortunate to host a visit from celebrity painter Adebanji Alade. Adebanji is a presenter on BBC’s ‘The One Show’ as well as vice president of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters. He is a wonderful motivational speaker among a myriad of other accomplishments. Selected for their exceptionally high effort and their above-andbeyond attitudes to learning in art, 27 students from across all key stages spent an entire day with Adebanji. They experienced a professional portfolio viewing, watched an inspiring painting demonstration and workshop and they each received one-to-one guidance on creating a portrait of their own in oil paint and mixed media. The students gained valuable insights and learned new skills in traditional and contemporary portraiture techniques using oil and mixed-media. They all produced highly successful and advanced portraits.
Inspired responses The students were absolutely delighted with the experience: ‘It was a brilliant opportunity and I would recommend this workshop to anyone’ - AK ‘Truly a wonderful experience! I’m so happy that I was picked for it, I feel like I’ve learnt many useful techniques and that this workshop will help me to become a great artist! I hope that one day I’ll be just as successful and skilled as Adebanji Alade!’ – BS ‘ Adebanji’s workshop was really educational and inspired me to do my own oil painting’ - IW Adebanji commented on his day at The Gryphon School; ‘Thanks so much for hosting a wonderful workshop with your talented art students, I really 104
enjoyed working with them.‘ Mr Malone, from The Gryphon School’s art department, said ‘We would like to say a huge thank you to both The Gryphon Foundation and to headteacher
Nicki Edwards for their generous support in helping to make this wonderful opportunity happen. And of course well done to the exceptional-effort students who took part.’
