Category: Uncategorized

August saw the first Sundorne Community Fun Day . . . more to come in 2012. It was a lovely day, the weather was warm and the young people of Sundorne made a unique bunting featuring their own drawings. The Bunting has been hung in the Sundorne Lantern Library and Resource Centre. The day was a collaboration between Shropshire Council, Shropshire Youth Service and Severnside Housing and was organised by Councillor Karen Burgoyne.

As an add-on to the Reading Throne project at Art Club we decided a chair was not enough so embarked on a side-project to make a chandelier to go above the wondrous chair. You can see the results The Reading Chandelier (it sees you when you read) below.

I lead an Art Club in an infant school in Shrewsbury Shropshire, it’s a wonderful creative environment and the children who are between the ages of 5 and 6 are very receptive to new ideas. We have worked on various projects, typically the group splits in half and two activities happen during our weekly session with one small one each time and one which runs across the whole series. This Autumn our big project was to make a Reading Throne: a magical chair, a place where children and adult readers can sit and feel the power of books. 

First the chair was painted white then we looked at colour mixing using only the primary colours and white and covered the chair in beautiful colours. We then found images in magazines and collaged these on to the chair (notice the chocolate wrapper and the word ‘love’ – the children were asked to find images that made them feel good), then strands of fabric and coloured cellophane were added. Next a few handfuls of multi-coloured glitter and finally a coat of clear glittery varnish. The upholstery is painted in acrylic paint with the words Books and a big pink heart.

You can see the results below, the chair now proudly resides in the library and we are working on a chandelier to match!

If you are interested in working with me, I have a CRB check and am always open to talking to new schools.

These images are from a mural project which I led in Sundorne infant school, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Over two weeks, I facilitated six large murals which were painted by all of the children throughout the school.

The smaller paintings are painted by myself and used during talks with pupils who were aged between 4 and 6, to demonstrate working as Claude Monet did, with only three colours: crimson, blue and lemon yellow with white. The murals are painted in Dulux Weathershield paint and should last up to 15 years.

This fantastic project demonstrated collaborative working and was commended by the UK Department of Education, Art in Mental Health Project.