Half Term Workshops

October 27, 2017October 27, 2017Leave a comment

We’ve had another lovely week of holiday workshops! It was great to see lots of our regular artists, plus some new faces. See you again soon everyone!

Please click on a photo to enlarge.

Halloween Crafts

We made some spooky crafts in this workshop! We had cotton bud skeletons, Frankenstein’s monster collages, painted pumpkins, haunted house doodles and yarn wrapped mummies.

Shaving Foam Marbling

This was the messiest workshop we’ve done so far, and it was great fun! We produced some wonderful prints using this technique.

Bonfire Night Crafts

After this workshop the studio was covered in glitter! Our artists made some brilliant pictures of fireworks using glitter, glue and fluorescent paints, and created some wonderful firework sculptures.

Pumpkin Pebbles

We created some pumpkins and some other halloween inspired pebble characters!

Calder Sculptures

We made some sculptures based on the work of Alexander Calder. We used primary colours and cut shapes inspired by Calder’s paintings and mobiles. We got some fantastic results!

Summer Workshops

August 14, 2017August 16, 2017Leave a comment

We had a lovely few days of workshops! It was great to see some of our current term time students, plus some artists who have previously attended workshops. It was also fantastic to meet lots of new creative youngsters!

Here’s what we’ve been up to- please click on a photo to enlarge.

Paper Rolling Sculptures

We made tubes from lots of different kinds of paper, including some that we had decorated ourselves. We then used cool melt glue guns to construct gravity-defying abstract sculptures. We got some brilliant results!

Face and Body Painting with Rose Croft

Professional artist Rose showed us a range of painting techniques, using ourselves as canvases! We learned how to apply the paint using sponges and brushes to recreate some of Rose’s designs (and to make up some of our own!)

Brilliant Buttons

We made a variety of different creations using lots and lots of buttons, including tree collages, picture frames and caterpillars!

Wigwam Weaving

We used willow withies to create mini wigwams, and then wove different kinds of wool and yarn onto them. We finished them off by adding feathers. We also worked as a group to weave lengths of fabric onto a large scale structure. This workshop was quite fiddly- all of our artists showed great perseverance!

Collage Creatures

We investigated the fabulous collage work of San Francisco-based artist Denise Fiedler. We learned how to create a dog collage using paper from an old book, and then had a go at assembling our own animal characters based on her work- we had dogs, cats, birds, horses and even unicorns!

Well done to all of our workshop artists- see you again soon!

Deepings Literary Festival Workshops

April 30, 2017May 8, 2017Leave a comment

We had a lovely day of workshops as part of the inaugural Deepings Literary Festival! Budding authors and illustrators who attended the workshops worked with Ellie to create their own mini picture books. We had some lovely results, and it was great to meet some new faces!

Group 1 (Reception, Year 1 & Year 2)

Group 2 (Year 3-6) and Group 3 (Year 7-9)

Easter Workshops

April 17, 2017Leave a comment

We had a fab time at our Easter workshops! It was great to use a bigger room in the Cross School for the first time, and we were pleased to see some new faces, plus lots of returning artists who’ve been to previous workshops.

Please click on a photo to enlarge.

Washi Tape Art

We made two pieces of artwork using tape! The first involved creating a pattern onto a canvas using Washi tape, which is a patterned low-tack tape originating in Japan. We added watercolour and Brusho in the negative space made by the tape, which created some very colourful pieces. For the second piece we used regular masking tape to mask off a design, before using sponges to apply paint across the whole board. We then removed the tape and were left with striking geometric designs.

Crazy Faces

We used portraits by Cubist artists Pablo Picasso and Jean Metzinger as inspiration for some very strange looking face sculptures! We assembled the main feature of our faces using pieces of cardboard, then painted them. Once they were dry, we used various bits and pieces to add further details, using a cool melt glue gun to attach them. We got some great results!

Easter Crafts

We had a very busy morning making a variety of Easter themed crafts using papercrafting techniques. We made egg-shaped tissue paper window decorations, a paper bunch of flowers, and coloured in Easter egg designs. We also made an Easter bunny from a cardboard tube to keep our mini eggs in!

Plasticine Sculpture

Craig Pattrick joined us to show us how to make fantastic Easter bunny and chick characters from plasticine. He went through the basic steps with us, and then helped us to add our own details. The resulting characters were stunning! (Ellie wishes she had a better camera as the photos don’t do them justice…)

A huge thank you to Craig, and we look forward to another visit soon! Follow this link to see Craig’s work Craig Pattrick Illustration

Christmas Workshops

January 4, 2017Leave a comment

On Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd December we held some festive workshops, which were great fun! It was brilliant to see so many of our term time students coming to workshops, as well as welcoming back children who had come to workshops before and meeting some new budding artists.

Christmas Crafts

We had a very busy morning creating various festive themed crafts, including decoupaged Christmas trees, lolly pop stick tree decorations, pipe cleaner wreaths and collaged Christmas cards. We also decorated bags with glittery star stickers, to take our creations home in!

Plasticine Sculpture

Illustrator Craig Pattrick showed us how to create detailed robin sculptures from plasticine, using professional tools. Our robins were full of character!

Origami Star Garlands

We used various papercraft techniques, including the Japanese art of Origami, to create garlands and tree decorations from patterned paper and card. Some of the techniques were quite fiddly- we showed great perseverance and got some lovely results!

Alternative Christmas Trees

We used rustic twigs and fine wire to create these fantastic wall decorations. We took some time selecting the perfect twigs before the fiddly job of wiring them together began! We then decorated them in our chosen manner using glitter, sequins, buttons, pom poms and sparkly wool. The end results were very effective!

Thank you to everyone who attended our Christmas workshops! We look forward to seeing you again soon. Happy new Year!

SUMMER HOLIDAY WORKSHOPS

August 31, 2016Leave a comment

Last week we ran three days of workshops, which was a lovely way to launch classes in the studio! On Monday 22nd August there was a workshop based on Ellie’s picture book, Follow Me, and a ceramic painting class. We even had some two year old artists joining in with the creativity!

On Tuesday 23rd August it was the turn of Ellie’s picture book Copycat Bear, plus some fabulous printmaking.

Finally on Wednesday 24th August we designed some lovely birds based on Ellie’s first book, Birdsong, and then visiting artist Craig Pattrick showed us how to create our own plasticine characters.