Christmas bunting workshop – recycled aluminium

WHAT: Why not come along to this workshop to get yourself in a real Christmas festive mood at the start of the school Christmas school holidays. Make some handmade, recycled, upcycled festive bunting.

In this workshop, we will be designing and making some recycled aluminium bunting by embossing patterns onto pre cut shapes, using a selection of embossing tools along with recycled ones. You will string your finished shapes onto some festive string for you to hang up in your home.

This workshop is suitable for adults and children over 7. Any participating adults accompanying children will need to also purchase a place on the workshop. Word of warning, there will be sharp edges, so care needs to be taken!

WHERE: Newton Ferrers WI Hall, 4 Parsonage Road, Newton Ferrers, PL8 1AS

WHEN: Monday 18th December, 2023

WHO: children over 7, and adults

Summer workshops… making a cover for a little sketchbook

Really simple… print some paper with nice colours and patterns, cover a little sketchbook with it and make a little expanding envelope, stick it in, smile, and voila! Now you have a special book to record all your musings, doodling, stick momentoes into…

A veryveryvery quiet workshop as everybody was away on holidays (though when you live in Devon, you don’t REALLY need to go away anywhere on holiday!)

Summer workshops… butterfly symmetry printing

This was my busiest workshop of the summer… I’m not sure how many people came but it was BUUUUSY, lots dropping in throughout the morning, this was another one run with Bovey help hub. I didn’t manage to get photos of everybody’s work, but what I’ve got images of here is great

I did little demos of how to do symmetrical printing, showed them where all the sequins, glue and collage bits were, then left them to it… again i absolutely LOVE what the kids came up with… I hope all these beautiful works of art have pride of place brightening up their homes around Bovey Tracey.

Kids Art Club Workshops – symmetry printing and 3-D beetles

Being inspired by the incredible patterns and forms of beetles, butterflies, moths and stick insects from around the world, the children started on making beautiful symmetry prints using acrylic paints as well as drawing with oil pastels. They spent an entire session just playing with the paints, building up layers of textures and colours on A3, A4, A5 and A6 pieces of good quality thick art paper which would be strong enough for constructing but still easy enough to fold and cut. I don’t like to give kids rubbishy art materials just because they are young! I want them to feel that their artwork deserves quality ingredients.

On week 2 they cut their papers and constructed some amazing creatures, wild enough to rival nature! This demanded some real engineering skills and I was so impressed by how they all helped each other and shared their ideas around for making them 3-D. I had shown them a few ways to turn a flat surface into 3-D one but actually they invesnted their own ways too! Have a look at some of their creatures which wouldn’t look out of place in an undisturbed jungle… 

Spacefruit Art Club Workshops

I’ve spent the past year running Art Clubs to mostly Key Stage 2 children in 2 of my local primary schools.

It has been some of the most enjoyable and rewarding work I have ever done!

Some art projects have included Papier Mache cacti, dice rolling abstract mixed media art game, incredible 3-D beetles made from wonderful decorated card which the printed themselves, playing with making stamps and decorating and covering their own small sketch book, amazing mini puppet theatres made from cardboard boxes, and clay animals.

It was hard to take photos when we were all so busy and right in the moment but I’ve taken a few. I shall write individual posts about each project. I am now planning some children’s art workshops for after Easter and over the summer holidays around South Hams Devon, perfect for your creative children and maybe some adult workshops too! To hear more about these, please add your name to the contact me page and leave a message in the box so I know that you’re interested in workshops.