Its been a strange old week with a wide variety of activities. Another service user made the step up to volunteering and ran their first session on Friday at WellArt which was brilliant. There seems to be no end to the talented people coming through us and gaining confidence to do more and develop.
Kentmere Ward
On the Ward the group were using glass paints to transform jars. Glass paint can be hard to use and get an even coating but with care can transform a plain glass surface into something beautiful. Using a black line to outline the shapes helps the colours stand out and give it definition.
WellArt
The session, led by Julia, explored eggs in many forms. With Easter close many small chocolate eggs were also consumed! Group members designed 2D eggs using a wide range of different items and styles. They also made mini £D eggs using mixed media and some started work on larger clay eggs to decorate in the style of a Faberge Egg.
2Create
2Create were thinking about the upcoming flower festival. One of the four displays we are doing is a large window split into six panels. Some of the group set about design ideas for this based on a poem written by the group. We wanted to be… colourful, bold and yet simple. There were some brilliant ideas. A few people also made craft paper flowers to put in displays and Ant was focused on a superb Monroe picture using real false eyelashes and lipstick!
Thursday Group
The Thursday Group all worked hard to finish items for the flower Festival, including tissue paper flowers and paper daffodils. Other participants worked on a handmade paper butterfly and bead spiders. The group encourages participants to w…ork on their own pieces and one participant completed a rag rug she had spent many hours on. The outcome saw most projects completed and a brief discussion about plans for the next few sessions to conclude.
Space2Create announced this week a new Creative Writing Group would be starting led by Poet Ann Wilson. The groups start from April 7th at the Gateway Centre in Kendal 1.45 pm to 3.45 pm.
2Create
In today’s session, the group embarked on a creative hand project – a recognition of what the hand can do. Participants drew an outline of their own hands, and within the constraints of the outline, proceeded to decorate as they saw fit. A …very effective technique was to do an ink wash, then to make highlights on the dry ink using a solution of watered-down bleach, creating a luminous finish; other techniques used felt-tip pen, crayon or even old maps and sweet wrappers to create differing effects. The resulting work was both varied and striking.
Kentmere Ward
The spring-like theme continued in today’s session on the ward, as participants were invited to create images, either of a bunch of roses, or of spring generally. These images eventually took on various forms: some remained as pencil drawings; others acquired strokes of colour; still others were used in mixed media pieces and became decorative bunting, in what proved a very productive and enjoyable session.
Thursday Group
In today’s session we celebrated a very important birthday of one of our members, so it was cake all round!! The other aim of the session was to continue working towards the forthcoming Flower Festival. Participants used many different tech…niques and materials to create wonderful flowers and a giant metal flower basket. The bunting – which we have been working on for some time – was almost completed by one participant: this proved to make the task all the more relevant and rewarding for her. The session saw everyone completing many of the projects previously started, which was very pleasing.
WellArt
Our hands have great significance to us as individuals. We touch and feel, we express and communicate with our hands. Carrying on where 2Create started, the WellArt group had a go at this activity, each expressing individually, their hands…. They drew round a hand then decorated in a variety of ways. For each individual the hands had different significance. Whether pained by recent operations, suffering with MS or with neuropathy pain, these hands delivered an original insight to each persons feelings this morning.
This weekm started with our new photogroup. From there on every group seemed to have flowers in it somewhere along the way but in very different forms.
Photo Group
The first S2C Photography Group headed into the back streets of Kendal. In bright, sunny weather we went up Sepulchre Lane and around a few back alleyways. Kendal has a wealth of unusual and quirky sights; all around are interesting little details in the landscape and buildings reflecting the history and people of the town. We had fun chatting and taking pictures, sharing ideas and tips, so we all came away feeling good.
2Create
In today’s session, we further experimented with calligrams; trying to make words that look like their meanings. This proved quite challenging at first, but allowed plenty of free expression, and the results were really successful. Also in …the same session, some individuals chose to work with clay, creating hands, bowls and plaques; others created cards to their own design. It proved to be a very creative, individual session, with participants experimenting with the different techniques and creating some very interesting outcomes.
Kentmere Ward
In today’s session on the ward, we had planned to make collages; however, the participants expressed a desire to sew and create small purses, so the session was adapted, which was brilliant. We also went on to create cards from some of the fabric used. It was a very successful and client-led session.
Thursday Group
In today’s session, we worked towards making an eye-catching display to interpret poems written by Space2Create participants for the Flower Festival in May. This was a real group effort, with input from everyone. There were so many unique i…deas, which then allowed participants to have free expression. Everyone created some really individual items, which also stimulated plenty of conversation, discussion, and, more importantly, laughter.
WellArt
In today’s WellArt, and in celebration of Spring arriving, participants made studies of some cut daffodils. Some chose to make pencil drawings of the subject; some used pen lines; others still used pastels, or a combination of both line and… colour. Other participants chose to pay a visit to the Abbot Hall Gallery, and drew inspiration for their drawings from the Patrick Caulfield exhibition. Still others paid a visit to the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry. The resulting work was both varied and interesting.
This week we held a training day for all our volunteers which was well attended. Everyone had fun alongside learning the serious stuff about dealing with service users, emergency procedures, timetables, a fabulous lunch and a great ideas session. Thank you to all our volunteers who give their time to make us a success and to help struggling individuals feel better about themselves.
WellArt
WellArt continued looking forward to the Comic Arts Festival in October. Thinking of our window display, we decided to start a Comic and Steampunk makeover, and to put Kendal buildings in the background. We set about the Town Hall, a…nd as usual the group surprised with the variety of ideas they had. A range of mixed media was used, but many cut up a photo of the Town Hall and used bits of it as a starting point. We also had some visual references from photos of Victorian steam engines and machines.
Thursday Group
In the session some of the group worked on bunting for the forthcoming Flower Festival. As always in this session, many individuals also come to work on their own projects: so there was wonderful work done on hand embroidery, a collage owl, and a hand made metal basket. This proved a very productive session, with plenty of conversation, laughter and planning for the flower displays.
2Creeate
At 2Create we looked back to a project some of us did in 2009 with an organisation called Pioneer Projects, involving making and sending postcards on a theme of capturing a feeling and expressing yourself. Today we looked at some of M…at’s postcards from the exhibition and the group then made their own. Many involved images and text collaged from newspapers and magazines. Some used a variety of media to build on this, such as pens and colours or block letters printed by hand. Overall the effect was great, and some good ideas were expressed in a mixed media format.
Kentmere Ward
In this session on the ward, we looked at and experimented with words drawn to look like their qualities or meanings (calligrams). This proved an interesting technique which allowed participants scope to interpret words individually. Everyone produced very successful results.
This week saw the announcement of our new Photography Group planning to explore the ins and outs of Kendal through pictures. Getting ready for the Flower festival in may was another big theme and we also started thinking ahead for the Comic Arts Festival!
Thursday Group
In this weeks session, we explored the idea of making flowers out of different media. The metal wire we used provided a stark contrast to the normally delicate petals. One individual worked on a huge basket, again using the metal wire. Others worked on painting decorated clay hands which became very striking. Others still were working on their individual pieces.
WellArt
The WellArt group turned their minds to the Comic Arts Festival. We talked about layout and how we could break away from simply doing stories as a series of boxes, but be more open-ended and creative. We took nursery rhymes and gave them a …little twist to update or change them a bit, then planned some simple storyboards and began creating and designing pages that were a little more quirky than normal. Some great ideas came from the session.
Kentmere Ward
We carried on with our floral theme on Kentmere Ward today, hoping that Spring was in the air! We created large flower heads from tissue and crepe paper. This simple technique is effective and very achievable – by folding the tissue paper l…ike a fan and then gently pulling each separate sheet out to create a pom-pom effect. This technique allowed each participant to create a unique flower, and, when all placed together in a vase, produced an eye-catching and colourful display.
2Create
In Space2Create things became a little doodle orientated. We looked at the idea of drawing little figures that held human characterstics but were small simple representations. We had the idea of using them en masse in a fantasy world based on letters from the Space2Create name; some of it a little Heath Robinson in style but on a miniature scale and with lots of humour.
Space2Create is pleased to announce we are starting a new group for our participants based around photography. The core will be the same as the group we had at Workbase and we hope to carry on the success in collaborating with local people …and business to drive projects. We also hope to hold regular exhibitions of work. Everyone is invited to join in, no need for any skill, experience or flashy cameras. We help and support each other in visiting interesting local spots to take varied and unusual images! The group will meet on the second Monday each month starting from 10th March 2014. For times, dates and locations please watch our website blog ( www.space2create.co.uk) and this facebook page. For more information email info@space2create.co.uk and we can add you to our photo mailing list to be kept up to date on events and meetings.
