The day we lost our marbling..

Marbling is a simple process that can go badly wrong. You need a flat tray of water, some reasonable paper and some marbling inks which can be purchased from any shop selling artist materials or in craft shops.

The ink is carefully dripped onto the surface of the water where it floats. If you put drops of two or three colours that is enough. Then use a comb or stick to gently swirl the inks into a pattern or random swirls. The paper is then gently lowered over the surface and left for a few second to absorb the ink from the water surface. Fish it out and place it on a rack to dry.

This is one of those activities that you get better at with practise!

 

 

After a while you could try marbling envelopes or other paper. We also tried working over the top of these, using them as backgrounds and in collage.

 

 

 

The second day of intertwinning!

This was the second session just to give people a chance to finish off some of the pics thay started. (We also did marbelling but thats the next post!).

The day we got our hands dirty.

We spent a couple of sessions messing around with charcoal and attempting portraits which many of us had never tried before. We spent some time looking at proportions and then all had a go at a portrait from the same picture. Needless to say no two were alike. Then we all had a go at some different people, some famous and some real. It was good fun and we all ended up covered in charcoal!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we had our first session as Space2Create

On Friday 4th January the WellArt group met as part of Space2Create at the Abbot Hall Gallery LAB. For a first session in a new place we saw plenty of group members and some new faces. We were working on complicated tangled pictures in the style of the session leader Mat who works under the name JimDogArt. When you have a mental health problem people often describe it being like a complicated barrier and life is a tangle. Drawing out these tangles the group members commented how relaxing it was concentrating on the complexity they were creating.

You can find more about Space2Create on facebook as you can JimDogArt. The pics below shows in action in the LAB and the picture we were using as inspiration.

 

 

The day we made modroc sculptures

We wanted to create some free standing sculptures so we decided to use bandages with plaster embedded in them. This can be bought under various trade names. We started by forming a wire framework then wrapping newspaper round the wire to bulk the figures out. We then used the bandages. These are easy to use, simply cut them into strips, wet them and apply around the newspaper. As you go you need to smooth off the surface to hide joins etc.. Some of us staple the figures to a wooden base and used the modroc over this too. Finally when the plaster had dried for a week we applied paint finishes.

The day we all went a bit Pollocks

We had been looking at the work of the artist Jackson Pollock and decided we would have a go. We adapted a range of squeezy bottles and plastic bottles. We put different size holes in some to let paint out. We used watered down acrylic paint for this. We went outside on the grass and put a piece of paper (thick cartridge paper) on the floor and then proceeded to dribble, splat, squeeze, throw, scrape, chuck and generally make a mess artistically.

We left the pictures to dry for a while and were pleased with the effects. In particular we liked the texture of some of the images. See what you think but we can recommend having a go as it is very freeing and creative.

The day we worked in the style of Hughie O'Donahue

We visited the exhibition of the artist Hughie O'Donahue at Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal. We all really enjoyed the visit and were interested in his style of mixed media along with fantastic oil on canvas. In particular the use of wood and locks embedded in the canvas along with photos. This gave us the idea to create our own pictures.

We first selected and image from a magazine and glued this onto a piece of paper. Then we used acrylic paints to extend the picture out across the page looking to extend lines and shapes beyond the edge of the ripped out pictures. This proved very effective.

 

 

 

The last image is based on the artist canvases at the exhibition that had been inspired by Pompeii and the eruption of Vesuvius.