Playing with paint – leaves, handprints and a joyful T-rex

11 July 2018

At the NUC summer group with children, we worked on a summer environmental theme, exploring painting and using different materials for mark making including brushes, rollers and hand prints.

The children also enjoyed painting on to the leaves directly, and had ideas for rainbows, butterflies. There was also some Jackson Pollock like mark making which left some striking pieces, as well as probably more paint on the floor!

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, NUC, Young people's art

Vibrant collage and crafty bold shapes

5 July 2018

This week we picked up on the shapes of the garden courtyard, buildings and summer foliage that we had explored with A4 drawings the week before.

We used collage and some simple craft cutting and sticking this time, combined with the lovely transparent inks, with pastels, to explore these rhythms of shapes.

This was much more free than the week before with enough time to experiment with composition and layout and get a feel for the possibilities of the different art materials.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Painting brave diamonds at Zen Heart Brush

2 July 2018

On a hot Monday evening we enjoyed some Shodo calligraphy in the refreshingly cool Kagyu Samye Dzong building.

We wrote or painted (in Japanese the verb kaku means both to write, draw, paint) the word Kongo 金剛 which means literally metal/ gold and brave/ sturdy. Together this can mean diamond, or vajra, indestructible truth, or thunderbold!

We looked at the older bone carvings and tensho styles and their meanings, before trying these and the kaisho style. We also explored some of the basic calligraphy strokes in these characters.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Summer drawings from the courtyard

28 June 2018

It was a bright day in the Maryhill Hub, and beautiful looking out the large windows to the garden courtyard and plants and vegetables growing there.

We started with some doodly drawings based on the shapes in the courtyard, such as the raised beds, organic shapes of plants and triangles and rectangles in the surrounding buildings.

Then we drew some close up green ferns pine needles with pens on A4 sheets, followed by a series of drawings with various papers with different surfaces, using lead or oil pastels to explore tones, colour and the organic textures.

It was really pleasant to see everyone’s drawings together on the floor at the end of the group, it was also a lovely atmosphere with a few new folk being welcomed to take part.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Sea urchins and shells turning into skulls and robots!

28 June 2018

At the Ruchill after school primary group the children worked on their sketchbooks, drawing mainly with pencils this session.

They began looking directly at some small natural objects like shells and a fragile pale green green sea urchin shell. After sketching in peace for a while looking at the textures and lines and edges, they began to draw some of their favourite things, from skulls to an iphone, to cartoon characters.

It was brilliant to see how much their confidence has developed over the last year and a half and how they enjoy spending some time with their sketchbooks.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, NUC, Young people's art

Having fun with metal and diamond!

23 June 2018

Having fun with the shodo calligraphy characters we will work with on Monday! Kin metal, gold, one of the Chinese 5 elements, kongo diamond, as well as tamashii, spirit. The meanings and variety of visuals in each of these is fascinating 😀

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Shodo calligraphy – in the middle of a dream

15 June 2018

We had fun with trying out both the curved older Tensho style as well as the more stylized Kaisho style at the last session. First we worked with with Ki 木 – tree, experimenting with the branch like strokes, and then Yume – dream/ illusion, along with Naka – inside/ centre.

So we had some time to try out these last two Chinese kanji characters together – muchu 夢中, which can mean really into something, or in a dream world.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Colours of heather, hill and forest

15 June 2018

At the last Maryhill art group we used pastels to develop some landscapy pieces and textures, inspired by images of the Highlands and a wee book of poetry and art by Hamish Fulton ‘Wild Life – Walks in the Cairngorms’.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Mountain caves and nesting mythical birds

15 June 2018

At Ruchill community centre we worked on the A4 sketchbooks with the children on some imaginative drawings and doodles.

It’s really nice to see their engagement with markmaking, and freedom to express themselves through art!

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, NUC, Young people's art

Drawing Trees day at Lenzie

5 June 2018

It was a peaceful yet creative day led by Margaret and Blair, with a super group of folk who enjoyed getting to know the trees and forest.

We began small in the morning with some relaxed doodly pieces followed by a mindful visual exploration of the trees whilst still in the workshop, and inspiration from the tree markmaking of Hokusai which we also worked from. We then walked in the forest spending time with the trees and engaging with our senses, drawing the sounds, collecting rubbings, textures and natural objects..

In the afternoon we chose a tree to focus on and connect with, working with moss and twigs from around the tree with ink and some charcoal. After a wee break and cuppa, and nicely timed to move into the workshop and avoid the thundery build up of rain cloud, our final piece of the day was an exuberant flourish of biological tree, branch and moss markmaking, using some natural things we collected like pine cones, as well as twigs and brushes.

Some comments from participants:

‘Loved the whole day, especially enjoyed being outdoors amongst the trees. No where to go, just sitting, feeling’

‘I liked the gentle introduction then the contrast between being indoors and outdoors – it felt encouraging and interesting’

‘Tree markings – memories of activities as a child. Preciousness of trees’

‘I really enjoyed the drawing to sounds – I used colours for different sounds which was fun! Also using moss etc to paint was great. Also going out in nature I am able to notice small details’

‘Playing with the wide brush and coloured inks – surprisingly easy to make graceful marks with the whole arm’

Category: Art Groups Tags: Environment, Margaret Kerr