Some inspiration from London and Bedford

Wherever I am, I always have my eyes open for interesting textures, architecture and street art - anything that can inspire me to create my own artwork. I am especially drawn to peeling paint, abandoned buildings and forgotten places. The old 'General Contractors' sign reminds me of times gone by and I like to imagine what it would have been like when it was a busy working business, same with the Lord Cecil pub. Inevitably with these sorts of places, they will soon enough be knocked down or renovated into modern builds, so I always feel it's important to catch them at this intermittent stage when they are nothing, but full of potential. The garfitti I captured just outside the Royal Festival Hall in London. It was so high up I wondered how the artist had managed it. I love the fact that it had clearly been commissioned as a piece of art, next to the Hayward gallery, so it was alongside contemporary 'gallery' or 'exhibiting' artists. It shows an acceptance of different types of art.

Creative Futures art course at Youth Inspired - week 8

 

 

This week we did an introduction to textiles as an art form and whilst searching the internet for interesting contemporary textile artists, I came across a fantastic designer called Jacopo Rosati, who makes all sorts of images, characters and faces using fuzzy felt. Inspired by this, the group took profile photographs of each other and then chose four colours of felt to create them out of. I find people often don't like the idea of doing self-portraits, it's too personal, so this was a good way of capturing the outline shape of their faces, so that they were still recognisable, but without too much intrusive detail. I think as a collection, they look particularly effective.

Inspiration from Glasgow

I've wanted to go to Glasgow for years and finally got around to it this summer. Such a shame about the School of Art having a fire recently, as that was the main place I wanted to go, but I found lots of inspiration elsewhere in the city. This Art Deco apartment block was simply stunning, if a little run down, and against the bright blue northern sky, it looked even more stunning. There were also quite a lot of run-down, forgotten buildings (my favourite) which I managed to capture. Hoping to find some time over the summer holidays to do something with these and bring them back to life - on the page at least.

Creative Futures art course at Youth Inspired - week 6

This week we had a fantastic time doing mosaics and visiting Bedford's Eagle art gallery on Castle Road. We started with an introduction to mosaics, learning about the process, from design through to grouting. The group then each chose a design they would like to mosaic, which ranged from hearts, to birds, to the national rail symbol, to a character from Mario Cart. I loved how each design showed a part of that person's personality. Everyone worked in detail to create intricate and accurate designs that best utilised the space they had available and the colours of mosaic tiles we had. The results are just beautiful and I will look forward to seeing the final products when they are grouted next week.

We then went to the Eagle Gallery to see the current Encounters exhibition, which showed work by local artists who had been influenced by other more famous artists, such as Chagal, Picasso, Degas and Kandinsky. The variety of the work was great as everyone could choose at least one piece they liked. I think it was also helpful for the group to see the links between old and contemporary artists, and what inspires different people.

Creative Futures art course at Youth Inspired - weeks 1-4

 

Creative Futures in an art course I am running at Youth Inspired in Bedford for adults with learning disabilities and mental health issues. I have the most fantastic group of eight learners who are continuing to amaze me week upon week with their enthusiasm, talent and uniqueness. Each week we do something different, to give them a taste of all the different artistic mediums that are available. In the first week we did a combination of painting and collage, to produce some wonderfully colourful silhouette images, as well as doing 'blind' portraits of each other.  In the second week we worked in two teams to make sculptures out of various household items and in the third and fourth weeks we have done 'alternative' drawing and watercolour painting. It's just brilliant to see them so proud of the work they produce and experiment with techniques  they have never tried before, pushing them out of their comfort zones and learning something completely new. I can't wait to have the exhibition at the end of the course!

Musical notes - mural at Youth Inspired

 

This is a mural I have been doing with the wonderful young people I work with at Youth Inspired in Bedford. It is the second mural I have done there and I feel I have made huge progress in learning how to work most effectively with groups when designing and painting a large scale project such as this one - giving them as much ownership and influence over the outcome as possible, whilst making sure everyone's creative ideas are taken into consideration. The last mural I did was only with a select few who were interested in art, whereas this one has been with everyone and I have been so proud of how they have embraced the project. Our original idea was just to have note, but the group felt it would make far more sense if the notes were actually coming from someone singing - which of course it does! We looked at different songs, for composition of the notes and the group decided upon the theme tune for Halo  (video game for those who don't know. Each student has their own note, which they designed themselves and themes range from song lyrics, to musical instruments, to a pony playing the cello, to a silhouette image of Prince. I have been so impressed by their ability to work as a team, compromise and commitment to do their best work. Will be finishing it over the summer holidays, so will post more photos upon completion!

Two Mile Ash School, teachers cpd session - exhibition at MK Gallery

This was the final culmination of a teachers cpd session I did at Two Mile Ash primary school several months ago. The session involved showing teachers some basic art skills that they could then use in class with their Year 4 students. I showed them how to do experimental group painting on large sheets of paper, getting very messy with sponges, nailbrushes, exfoliating gloves and other household items - anything but paint brushes basically! I then showed them how they could turn the results into the basis for more artwork - by drawing on top, or cutting the paintings up into recognisable images. The school were doing two projects at the time - one on MK architecture and another on the Romans. On seeing the results at the exhibition, I was pleased to see they had used the cpd session to influence both topics, drawing beautiful Roman ruins onto some of the paintings and cutting some of the others up into lots of familiar buildings from around MK. It was really rewarding to finally see the results of my cpd session and the different angles teachers had taken on what they had learnt. From the look of the photos in the exhibition, it seems the children had a great time too, which is of course the main thing!