Paper toy workshop

During the half term break I had the opportunity to lead a workshop at Sheffield's Children's Hospital, on making paper toys. I had a fantastic day. I only worked with a very small number of patients, but they all loved it, and it was really great to see what an impact it had. One girl would barely grunt un response at the start of the day, but by the end of it she was laughing and joking. It would be amazing to do this all the time! 

February Workshops

In February I had great fun leading a workshop at Derby Quad, teaching a group how to design and make their own Robot paper toy. They were all boys, and I think my work was all a bit cute for them, with by far not enough guns! They came up with some great work!

Summer Workshops

I did this workshop towards the start of the summer holiday, but have just realised how long it has been since I did a post, too busy having fun I guess!
I had to share these photos, I think maps are fascinating, and it turns out they make great paper flowers. It was a gentleman that made these, and he really quite enjoyed it. I like the combination of something that is deemed feminine with something that is considered more masculine.

Frame decorating workshop

I am running the second part of a workshop tomorrow, this one will focus on using book, maps, magazines, newspapers and papers to decorate a frame.

I have been prepping for it over the last day or two, and here is the frame I came up with, where I tried out a few different techniques. Mainly ones I had saved on Pinterest and hadn't gotten round to having a go at. I was surprised how easy most of them were. I normally spend most of my time creating artwork digitally, so it is so nice and relaxing to make something by hand.

Frame workshop

I hadn't lead on a workshop for a little while, and it felt really good to back into it. Doing a session on making and decorating frames for Age UK in Derbyshire. We started with some simple origami, though some of them looked lovely. I especially liked the one shown in the 2 photos above. It looks like a really complex design when finished.

Then I went through a few different techniques to decorate frames with recycled paper. Everyone came up with their own take on it, which was lovely. It was a nice relaxing 2 hours. Looking forward to next weeks workshop now!

ups and downs

 Last week was a week of ups and downs, as many are when you are trying to carve out a creative career for yourself! I had a great time visiting 2 youth groups in the Birmingham area, and delivering workshops for the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Although it is difficult when a lot of the people who you are leading look older than you! (for those that don't know, I am actually 24, but am small in stature and constantly get told I look 18) I met some real characters, who I am looking forward to meeting again next week.

I also had to interviews for Creative Practitioner jobs, one at a primary and one at a secondary. Unfortunately I didn't get either, but had fun delivering the taster workshops. So time to dust myself down, and keep applying and keep working on my own practice. The scary thing is that these jobs will probably not exist next year, as it's quite obvious that whoever wins the election next week, it is going to be initiatives like the Creative Partnership projects that get their funding cut. Which will be a real shame, but I am afraid it is probably inevitable.

But on to happier things, I have begun a small project with a confectionary company, and have also created some new characters, and also created some new sketches of one of my favourite characters, which will be getting the digital treatment any time soon.

Expect to see more from these four friends in the future!

I have decided to do a series of Millie with a pin-up girl style slant. I love the old pin-up girl illustrations. They truly do depict 'glamour' girls! really it is an insult that people like Jordan, or sorry should I say Katie Price get described as glamourous when that couldn't be further from the truth. 

Images such as the one above by Alberto Vargas. They depict a glamour of a by-gone era, and the images are normally sexy and teasing, rather than in-your-face and brainless, like the fodder seen on the likes of delights such as 'nuts' and 'zoo' magazine!

The result of hardwork!

So my project at Madeley High School came to an end last week. It feels strange that I won't be going back there once a week, as I have done for the last 3 months. The project accumalated in the children making and installing their own artwork, it was a hectic but successful day. Below are images of their work in situ

The whole class contributed to this flower pot, places in the reception area

This one was partly inspired by the wool installation the children did with me, but here they took it a step further. It had a real sense of dynamism, and the group were very committed; putting the work out in horrible weather!

This group put their 'Mario' inspired installation in the library. They placed boxes around the library that released balloons with viewer interaction; ingenious!

This group were inspired to create this musical creation! It was placed on the hall stage and looked fantastic!

This group were also inspired by music, to create these 'music trees' from an interesting array of materials, they were placed in discrete places around the school, so students sort of stumbled across them