Pattern and pathways – connecting with the environment

29 November 2018

We had an energetic and creative night at Maryhill Art Group to restart our fun relaxed sessions in the Maryhill Hub!

We used different methods to interact with the environment, beginning with some doodly expression with pens then drawing our journey to the building and considering the shapes, roads, bends and natural- urban aspects on the way. Some of the roads were a bit of a maze!

Listening to poetry connected with autumn and using mindful calm relaxation we settled down, and listened to some more words about the environment and the season.

Then we started writing some words related to what we had heard and thought, from which we drew to develop this, and some folk preferred to draw and other to write. We also drew the words in a visual way.

Feeling the textures of local leaves from the park and riverside, such as maple, sycamore, and horse chestnut, and looking at these, smelling, connecting with our senses.. making them a lot easier and more natural to draw! The pastels and pens were nice and colourful to use for these pieces.

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

Funding for Maryhill Art Group awarded by Glasgow CAN

22 October 2018

We are delighted to let you know we have received funding from Glasgow Connected Arts Network (Glasgow CAN) for our community group in The Maryhill HUB to take us to the end of March 2019.

The next Maryhill Art Group will be inspired by nature, it is a very easygoing evening session and open to anyone to come along, and no art experience is needed. There is more info on our website.

Maryhill Art Group Event Page

Past Maryhill Art Group activities

Category: News Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Maryhill Art Cave!

14 October 2018

Over two Thursday evenings we had a lot of fun together on a pattern/ pictogram project. First we looked at examples of old ways of visual communication and language from around the world, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Chinese Kanji to Pictish symbols from Scotland and Native American symbols, which inspired us to experiment ourselves with new ways to convey natural things using visuals or pictures rather than written words.

The first week we spent the time finding our own drawing patterns for various objects and experiences, such as grass, bark, person, dancing, leaves, clouds, using pens and different papers.

In the second week we continued this to begin the night, making a page for rain, or raindrops, insects, flowers, trees..

Then we laid out a wide roll of cartridge paper, set out some ink colours and brushes, sponges and began pattern – pictogram making. We moved around the piece as it developed, which was very quickly!

Some of the symbols and characters were quite mysterious, and we brought in other styles of shapes to create or deepen something about the meaning. One or two of the group didn’t want to reveal the meanings of their characters which made the process more fascinating to be part of!

As we worked we had a wee look at all our collected single A4 sheets to help guide us, and chatted about how we could bring the piece together, how much white space to keep, and ideas to let the visual symbols interact.

It surprised us just how natural it felt to work and communicate this way, it wasn’t forced or laboured. In a way making the piece transported us into a more ancient type of markmaking seen in cave or rock symbols, freeing and flowing 🙂

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

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

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

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

Freedom to have fun with ink and varied brushes – Maryhill Art Group

2 May 2018

Maryhill art group marks 1-2 www.drawingandpaintingstudio from Drawing and Painting Studio on Vimeo.

Maryhill art group marks 4-2 www.drawingandpaintingstudio from Drawing and Painting Studio on Vimeo.

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

Imagining passing clouds and rugged mountain ranges – Maryhill art group

22 April 2018

After listening to some inspiring poetry about clouds and mountains, including Hanshan’s about a path through mountain scree and boulders, we made some loose drawings of hill ridges and wispy floating clouds. Everyone’s work was different – capturing the feel of the elements and mystery of the hills and open space.

After that we enjoyed working on a long drawing on cartridge paper together using graphite and black markers. This took around 40 minutes to build up, partly inspired by the Cuillin mountains of Skye, and also bringing in our imagination too!

Maryhill art group mountain ridge 3 www.drawingandpaintingstudio.com from Drawing and Painting Studio on Vimeo.

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

The flow of water moving along the river, the curving lines of gliding birds, patterns in rocks – Maryhill art group

22 February 2018

Inspired by textures and the rhythms of lines and spaces in nature, we started with some imaginative marks responding to these themes, before drawing from some natural objects.

Ink and a variety of brushes came in handy to explore those textures as well as experiment and try out working expressively with drawing and painting approaches.

Maryhill Art Group Marks 2-2 www.drawingandpaintingstudio from Drawing and Painting Studio on Vimeo.

Maryhill Art Group Marks 3-2 Www.drawingandpaintingstudio from Drawing and Painting Studio on Vimeo.

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

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