Floating stones and flying paper

23 November 2017

We continued some of the work from the previous session, this time concentrating on stones and pebbles, looking at their shapes and being led by their character to finding different ways to draw them.

Cutting and sticking or tearing, we used various papers to make stony and natural feeling shapes or created shapes to put around areas of drawing marks. Exploring the different possibilities of stones with these materials in an abstract way was fun!

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

NUC Cash for Kids banner!

22 November 2017

Sylvia gave us an emergency mission for this after school session – to make a banner for charity fundraising for the work with the young people.

So we speedily set to work, all hands on paint pens, and created a simple but catchy composition!

The children enjoyed the challenge, and especially loved sketching and decorating the letters in diverse ways.

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

Anraku – Ease and Joy brushed with ink

20 November 2017

After a cuppa and a chat about Shodo calligraphy and Chinese and Japanese kanji, we worked on the characters 安楽 anraku, usually meaning comfort or carefree and also meaning ease and joy. Some temples in Japan have this in their name, and it appears in old writing too.

An 安 itself has various meanings including relaxed or peaceful, and raku/ tanoshii means comfort, fun, ease or also music. They are common characters and together thsi work really nicely in a longer composition on the hanshi Japanese paper.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

The world of natural objects – shell, stone and wood

16 November 2017

Oil pastels were ideal to use to draw the textures of stones and wood from our collection of natural objects picked up from beaches, forests and mountains over the years!

Looking into the intricate surface textures to find inspiration, we started working from one or two of the things with loose doodles and drawings.

Then we went on to making a larger piece with a more imaginative space and aspects of the natural objects coming in like the spiraling shapes of shells or the organic patterns of lichen on rocks.

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

After school drawing and developing sketchbooks

15 November 2017

Some of the older primary school children at the North United Communities group are already filling up their first sketchbook with fabulous creative drawings and crafty shapes!

It was great to see them engaging with their books and feeling connected to them, in this session they had freedom to work from manga and cartoons.

There were also some images for the young people to cut out or make collage with, juxtaposing different textures and colours.

The hearty food from the NUC kitchen revitalised us for a second wave of creativity 🙂

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

Autumn dreams drifting on the breeze

13 November 2017

At our Zen Heart Brush calligraphy group, we began listening to some autumn themed haiku poetry before getting a feel for the fude brushes and suzuri ink well with some elemental shapes and marks.

Then we practiced some simple shodo calligraphy strokes, before working on yume/ mu 夢 for dream or vision, a fascinating kanji character containing combined parts such as evening and eye.

Connecting with the poetry, we also enjoyed trying out the character for autumn aki 秋 which contains the distinctive fire character.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Skybrush Earthbrush

10 November 2017

It was super to be asked by Margaret Kerr to her inspiring place in Lenzie to work with her on this one day retreat combining meditation, outdoor walking and mindful practice with Shodo calligraphy. We began the day with a chat about the theme – the vast land and the great sky – and talked about the Chinese/ Japanese characters of Daichi and Tenkuu.

We then sat in a circle in the room to meditate together which was a nice peaceful way to get settled. We got ready to head outside for a short walk to the edge of the land to take in an open view of the hills and sky to the North, towards the Campsies. Margaret encouraged us to connect with space and sky through our various senses, including listening to the space, and using our sight, such as noticing the sky to the edges of our vision where we may not often be aware of. Then we found a spot each to sit or stand and have some personal time to take in the sky.

Taking this awareness inside, we first got a feel for the materials then we tried out the kanji for heavens 天 with the Japanese brushes and ink, a graceful dynamic shape! Blair did some demos giving tips on how to hold and move the brush and embrace the feeling of sky whilst working.

After lunch we went outside with Margaret leading us to the grove and helping us connect, touch and feel the great earth. It was amazing to sit there, looking and touching all the myriad of subtle textures and colours, and be grounded. It was quite different looking down this time, and taking in the small things.

We took this earthy feel back inside to work on the kanji chi 地 for ground which is quite a tectonic geographical looking shape with the interlocking brushstrokes! It was a bit chilly but we put on our warm hats and scarves and headed outside the workshop for some large calligraphy pieces. There was a demo first of the characters and then folk enjoyed some freedom with the substantial large old fude brushes (kindly passed onto Blair from his calligraphy master Ojiiichan ‘Granpa’, Shujo Wakabayashi). Great to see the group energetically working on their big pieces.

It was a fun finish to the day, working with great earth and vast sky directly outside on the grass by the birch trees. Margaret then brought us together for a short moment to reflect on the day.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Environment, Margaret Kerr, Meditation, Shodo calligraphy

Drawing studio objects – with some funny faces too 🙂

9 November 2017

We used a few different approaches to draw some studio objects like rollers or palette knives, such as drawing round the object, or drawing holding two pens at once, and some sketching too.

Yellow, beige, red, black and green coloured sugar papers with paint pens gave us a nice effect with some contrast and a sense of atmosphere and space for the objects to be drawn in. Some of the young people who joined us had fun experimenting with portraits and silly faces, good to see them enjoy!

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

Freedom in shapes and pattern at Ruchill

8 November 2017

This workshop with the after school children of Ruchill was all about helping the young people express themselves through colour and line combinations in ways they maybe had not tried before.

Working in their A4 sketchbooks and on single sheets, we didn’t use images to work from directly this time but chatted about pattern and looked at some examples beforehand, which seemed to engage well with them and there was then a flurry of creative energy and shape drawings with some glowing colours!

And of course some cartoon characters popped up too in the sketchbooks 🙂

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

Creative wellbeing group with older people in Lanark

28 October 2017

In the Clyde Valley at historic Lanark, we worked with the McClymont House care home residents to create some joyful expressive drawings!

The markmaking and drawings brought back different memories for some, and created new challenges for others! One lively older lady, grand age of 103 years old, found it quite diifficult to start to make a mark at all on the blank paper, but after some initial experimentation with the paint pens she was off and there was no stopping her flow of drawing.

The residents tried out some different drawing approaches enjoying the process of making marks, and made really nice compositions too, and they were generally surprised how much fun they found the drawing!

It was a gentle, peaceful atmosphere and the doodling and sketching left folk very cheerful and inspired which was great to see, as well as bringing folk together and enjoy the group activity.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups