Headstart landscape paintings

Recently I've been teaching the lovely young people at Headstart about colour mixing and painting techniques, which they've then begun translating into landscape paintings. Such amazing results so far, they are so proud of themselves and so they should be.

Some well needed studio time

A few weeks ago I made a tiny canvas as part of a demonstration I was doing about painting techniques with a group of young people at Arts for Health. The results were surprisingly really nice, even though I wasn't really paying much attention to what I was doing! In the same session my lovely volunteer Amy traced a gorgeous picture of a parrot onto acetate and we decided that the two looked perfect layered together. Since then I've been dying to get into my studio and have a go at re-creating the piece on a larger scale. Finally got around to making the background this week.... 

Inky postcards

At Headway recently we have been playing around a lot with acrylic inks. They have been such fun and most people have found them more enjoyable than watercolours because of their vibrancy. I bought the group some watercolour paper in postcard size so that they could create a design and then write a message on the back to someone to then be posted. These are the results;

Drawing workshops

I've been collaboratively running a new programme for Arts for Health called STEP UP, which aims to equip participants who have already done the Arts on Prescription programme with more skills to develop their art practice. The first few weeks of the course were spent doing experimental drawing exercises including; blind drawing, continuous line, drawing with an extended stick and using polystyrene balls rolled in ink. The results were exciting!

More creating art outdoors

During that super hot weather we had a few weeks ago, I thought it would be nice to do a session outdoor with my weekly Headstart group using Sunlight paper and foliage. The group loved collecting leaves, sticks, flowers and pebbles and then arranging them on the sunlight paper, before watching them develop. They created some gorgeous prints. We also did some leaf printing by painting leaves and pressing them onto white paper. We created our own very unique wallpaper.

Outdoor learning

I recently had the opportunity to be involved with a project at MK Gallery for Children's art week, working alongside other artists and an exciting organisation called 5x5x5=creativity.
https://5x5x5creativity.org.uk/
Between us we worked with five primary schools in Milton Keynes exploring art in the outdoors through a child-led exploratory approach. This was a new way of working for me and was daunting at times, but pushed me to develop new ways of working and to be more flexible in my approach to creating art with children. I worked with St Monica's Catholic school and we had such a good day collecting, collaging, mark-making and drawing outdoors...despite battling with the wind!

MK Gallery

A few pics from the many brilliant projects I have been involved with at MK Gallery recently, working with schools and families. I've done Graffiti, Indian art, African art, architecture projects, Royal Family art, mini-residencies, waves and water...just to list a few!

Arts on Prescription - MK Arts for Health

Some images from a recent arts on prescription programme I ran for Arts for Health, exploring a range of mediums and approaches including acrylic painting, collage and drawing with inks. Some particularly beautiful landscapes from people who had never painted before.

 

Headstart - MK Arts for Health

I have recently starting running a group for young people aged 13-17 experiencing mild mental difficulties. They have been a really interesting work to work with and are very slowly coming out of their shells. The group are really interested in exploring their own personal interests within art and having the freedom to self-direct projects, in a way they often can't at school. We've also done some fantastic group collaborations.

Headway Milton Keynes

I've been fortunate enough to have been working with Headway Milton Keynes for the last 18 months, running weekly art sessions for some of their members. The participants are full of character and life and we have such a giggle every week. The sessions really offer a lifeline to some of the group providing social interaction and meaningful activity. So far we have explored painting, drawing, sculpture, mosaics and collage, with each project providing opportunities for discovery and development of new and existing skills.

Update...

So a quick summary of what I've been up to over the past 18 months. This should be easy! My Facebook page has become my platform for documentation recently, so I seriously need to get back into the habit of regular blogging.