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Starting Activities – Favourite Things

An opportunity to share a love of writing, music, painting, crafts, poetry and film with each other.

You will need:

• CD or cassette player;
• video/DVD player and TV; and
• if these are not available, just some chairs to sit and talk and read.

Organising the session

• You can meet in each other’s homes or a communal room if you have one. You may want to find a comfortable space to hire where you have the equipment you need.
• Pick a theme such as the sea, autumn, childhood, or a colour, or an emotion such as love or sorrow, and ask participants to bring anything they like to the session which relates to the theme.
• Why not ask everyone to nominate a theme and make a list to cover a number of sessions so that anyone who misses a session will know what to bring for the following one.
• At the session ask everyone in turn to show their chosen picture or film, or read their poem or piece of writing, or play their piece of music. They could also bring an object to show and talk about or something they have written or made themselves.
• Encourage them to talk a little about their choice and the significance it has for them. Also encourage others to join in and make it an interesting discussion. You may find yourself enjoying things you never thought you would.
• Try to alternate forms of discussion – a picture following a poem for instance.
• A cup of tea or a glass of wine makes the session more sociable. Enjoy yourselves and share the things you love with each other.

Starting Activities – Glass Painting

You will need:

• glass paints (preferably water-based) and thinners if needed (depending on the paints used). You will find these in art and craft shops;
• a selection of soft brushes in various sizes. If using art brushes try size 4 or 8, depending on the area to be covered;
• outliner paste in tubes;
• something glass to paint on such as old, clean jam jars, glass tumblers ,wine glasses or vases;
• a pot of water for washing brushes or the suggested cleaner;
• small pots or mixing wells for diluting paint with the thinners;
• rags;
• newspapers or another covering for the table; and
• aprons or old shirts for protecting clothes.

What to do

• Draw the design onto the glass with the outliner. Begin with simple shapes like clouds, stars or leaf shapes. Or maybe try geometric patterns. The idea is that the outliner separates the colours just like a stained glass window. It’s important that each shape is closed, with no gaps in the outliner.
• Leave it to touch dry (about ½ an hour) and have a cup of tea while you wait.
• Using brushes, paint your chosen colours into the shapes you have made with the outliner. If you have left gaps in the outliner, your paint may bleed.  
• When the paint is dry, place a nightlight inside and enjoy the efforts of your labours. Several of these look very pretty if placed in the garden at night in the summer and will even ward off mosquitoes if you use a citronella scented nightlight.
• If you want to be able to wash your work of art, you may need to bake it in the oven first. Check the instructions that come with your glass paints.

Starting Activities – Keeping a Sketchbook or Journal

You will need:

• a small sketchbook (size A6 or even A5) fits nicely into a pocket or your handbag; and
• a pencil or fibre tip pen. Use colour if you like. A protracting pencil is quite cheap to buy in stationers will always be sharp.

What to do:

• You can write poems, notes about the weather or your mood, draw a single snowdrop that you see coming up after Xmas or the bird that eats at your bird table.
• If you go for a walk record what you see either in a written form or as a sketch. Don’t rub anything out. Crossing out or overdrawing is much more interesting as you can look back and see how you did something or how your view of it changed while you were looking. Even poetry looks more interesting if you can see the thought processes at work.
• The sketchbook is meant for your eyes only so it does not matter how ‘good’ the drawing is. Feel free to be as experimental as you like. You will find in time that your drawing and observational skills will improve. By going out and drawing the things you see, you will find that you actually notice more.
• If you find something that you like such as a feather or a flower then glue it in. You can also include pictures or photos. The sketchbook or journal is your private record of your time and the things you see in your daily life.
• Artists have kept sketchbooks for centuries and are used as a resource for paintings and other artworks. They are often the most interesting part of their work. Leonardo da Vinci not only sketched parts of the human body such as feet, hands and heads over and over again but also the muscles and skeleton underneath. He also drew his famous inventions, such as the helicopter, long before man was able to build such things. He was working on problems and using his sketchbook to record the things he saw and imagined.
• If you don’t have time to sketch, carry a disposable camera with you and take a photo. You can stick the photo in the book as a record and write a few notes to remind you what you found interesting about it.
• Have a look at the book ‘A Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’. It is a very accomplished and well planned nature diary but don’t feel you have to aspire to such a high standard – most artists sketchbooks are very messy affairs but just as interesting for it all.
• The ideas you collect will help you make paintings, greetings cards and other art and craft projects.
• Your observations can also used as your own personal journal in the same way as a diary – to be read and enjoyed years later. It may even become a family heirloom.

Starting Activities – Painting Colour

You will need:

• gouache paints in blue, yellow and red (try cadmium red, cobalt blue and cadmium yellow or french ultramarine, cadmium yellow and alizarin crimson, for example);
• various watercolour brushes, say sizes 10 and 6;
• watercolour paper or medium/heavyweight cartridge paper;
• mixing palettes, old white china plates will do;
• separate pots of clean water for mixing colour and for cleaning brushes;
• newspaper or other covering for table;
• apron or old shirt to protect clothing; and
• autumn leaves.

What to do

• You can draw the leaf freehand or draw round it. If using a picture to work from, try drawing the main colour shapes you see, do not worry about trying to make it look ‘real’.
• Squeeze about a one-inch blob of each colour onto your palette, from these three colours you can mix every colour you need.
• Blue and yellow make green. Red and yellow make orange. Blue and red make purple. If you mix all 3 colours together you will make a range of brown or grey colours. Just experiment and see what colours you can mix and how close you can get them to the colours in the leaf.
• You will need to add a little water to your paint to make it flow better. It should be a bit like single cream and cover your paper completely without leaving dry, scratchy marks or showing the paper through once it has dried.
• Gouache colours tend to dry a little darker than they look while still wet. When the paint has dried you can paint over it with another colour if you want to change it. Try painting over a colour before it has completely dried to see the effect it gives.
• When you have finished one have a go at another. The more you paint the better you will become at seeing and mixing colour successfully.
• Try experimenting with colour mixing by using patterned fabric, coloured pictures from magazines or postcards or anything flat that is colourful and catches your eye to work from instead of leaves.
• Most of all enjoy mixing and using colour. Stop for a cup of tea and have a look at each other’s paintings, you will be surprised how different each one looks and how many colours can be mixed from just those three basic colours.

Starting Activities – Painting Pots

You will need:

• terracotta flowerpots (you choose the size, but five to six inches is a good all-round size);
• household emulsion paints (left over tins or test pots);
• brushes (cheap decorators’ brushes about an inch width and small brushes suitable for acrylic paint);
• a large water pot for washing brushes;
• a screwdriver or similar to open paint lids;
• rags;
• newspaper or another covering for the table; and
• aprons or old shirts to protect clothes.

What to do

• Paint the pot with a base colour, possibly with a different colour on the rim.
• When the paint is touch dry (about half an hour - time to have a cup of tea!), decorate with stripes, spots, flowers, swags, patterns or herb names.

Materials for planting up

• Potting compost;
• crocks, broken polystyrene or teas bags for drainage;
• trowel (optional but saves getting dirty hands); and
• seeds such as herbs, wildflowers, annuals or bulbs (make sure you plant them at the correct time).

Method

• Place crocks/polystyrene/teabags in the bottom of the pot and fill it up with the compost. Sprinkle your seeds lightly over the surface (following the instructions on the packet) or plant bulbs at the correct depth.
• Wait and watch them come up. Don’t forget to water the seedlings and keep them out of direct sunlight.
• Your pot will look good on your patio or windowsill but the paint will peel eventually. It can be touched up or repainted.
• You can paint a saucer to match but if it’s used indoors you will need to put something underneath it to protect polished surfaces as is the saucer won’t be waterproof.

Other fillings

• Smaller, straight-sided pots make good pen and pencil holders. For a nice present for children paint them in bright and cheerful colours or match the colours to their bedrooms.
• Try putting some packing such as pretty plastic ‘straw’ or scrunched tissue paper in and add bath pearls or small soaps for a personalised present. You could wrap it in cellophane and tie with a ribbon around the top.
• Whatever you choose will be special because you made it.

Further suggestions for using up emulsion paints

• Paint old shoeboxes or other cardboard boxes for storage.
• Any wooden object can be painted but it will need to be sanded or washed to remove grease and old varnish or paint. Try junk shops or car boot sales for old frames, wooden boxes, lamp bases and even pieces of furniture. Your object can be painted with clear acrylic varnish afterwards to protect it.
• ‘Gold-fingering’, available in craft shops, can be used to highlight designs.

Starting Activities – Ideas for an Art Group

These notes were prepared by an Upstream mentor to help the Silverton Art Group to ‘keep their inspiration flowing’:

Collect ideas

Look through magazines and books. Collect pictures, postcards, calendars and greetings cards of flowers, wildlife landscapes, buildings, your home, people – whatever interests you. Store your ideas in a separate folder or stick them in your sketchbook for to use another time.

Keep a Sketchbook

• Draw the things you see that interest you and add pictures that you have collected. Glue in bits and pieces such as feathers, flowers, pieces of fabric, anything that takes your eye and could be used in a painting at a later date, or just because you like it.
• If you like the colour, try to mix it, see how close you can make it.
• The design may interest you. Can you copy it? What would happen if you changed it a bit or extended it or made it larger?
• Your sketchbook is where you can try out ideas and have fun without worrying about who will see.

Take Photos

• Use your camera if you have one. Or make a quick sketch, so that you have a record of your impression and a colour record as well.
• Remember, do not copy the photo too accurately, it’s only an aid to memory. Your painting will be more interesting if the design and the colour are well thought out beforehand.

Using your work

• Try making your own greetings cards or calendar from your finished pictures. You can buy special blanks from stationery and art shops. There are ways to use the best part of a painting that has not quite turned out to your satisfaction.

Making a Book

• If you enjoy writing too, you could make your own illustrated book – poetry, short stories, a novel, children’s stories, personal history, or a journal of the weather, garden or your local area. Don’t forget the cover. Your family would probably want to keep it as an heirloom and future generations would feel that they knew you as well.

Finding Information

• Try a monthly magazine, such as ‘Artist and Leisure Painter’. The newsagent could deliver it or arrange for a subscription through the post which may be cheaper but you may have to pay in advance. Magazines give you ideas and practical tips on materials. They also have advertisements for mail order art supplies.
• Borrow books from the mobile library - on art, natural history, landscape, local photographers.
• Look at the work of as many artists as you can, even if you don’t like them. You may find they use good colour combinations or have interesting ideas. Copy them and work out how they mixed colours.
• Here are some famous artists. Velasquez, Rembrandt, Goya, Vermeer, Constable, Turner, Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gaugin, Seurat, Van Gogh, Kandinski, Matisse, Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe, Klee. You might be able to get books on them but also look at the works of local artists and visit galleries.
• Study their work, how they have composed their paintings? What colours they have used. Can you see their brush marks? What marks do they make? This is very important when painting in oils, as each artist has a distinctive way of working that gives the painting its expressive quality.
• If you want to study watercolours, the Royal Watercolour Society has produced ‘The Glory of Watercolour’ which shows the work of many of the English watercolour artists. Compare the English style with the strong tradition of watercolour painting in America, although it is hard to find books on American watercolours.
• Whatever you do, the important thing is to enjoy yourself. Your joy will show through in the work you produce.

Starting Activities – Living History

The importance of recording what is happening within a community is often fragmentary or not recognised. A Living History Group collates material about events taking place in the life of a village or town.

You want to:

• record events as they happen;
• gather material for immediate and long-term use;
• build up a network of people within the community; and
• create a catalogue and index of sources.

What to do

• Send a letter to organisations and key people in the village, explaining the aims of the group. Put a copy of the letter in the local newsletter.
• Speak to the right people to confirm the message in the letter.
• Invite people to come to your session.
• Catalogue and index material as you find out about it.
• At each session discuss the events that are due to take place during the coming four weeks. Contact people who are likely to be at each event to give you videos, photographs or written accounts.

Or, you could:

• keep a calendar of forthcoming events in the community and ensure that someone will attend to record what is happening – plan this at each session; and
• catalogue and index the material.

Cataloguing and indexing

• A catalogue and index are both ways of finding a record of an event.
• An index lists the event, the format of the record, the date of the record, the location of the record and by whom it was recorded.
• A catalogue gives a brief outline of what is in each record.

Starting Activities – Reading Group

This is a time to share with others what you have been reading recently. A reading group provides an opportunity for people to explore different types of reading material together – some fictional, some fact. At the initial meeting you will need to agree to a four-week rota: books, magazines, poetry, newspapers.

Discussing a book

• The group can register at the local library or with the mobile library as a book group and will be eligible for book sets.
• The library will provide an extensive list of books for which there are sets available for loan to book groups. Large print and audio books are available.
• Registration is simple.
• Books have to be ordered and normally take a few days to become available.
• Or you may wish to pass round books that you already have or buy for the group.

Book Sessions

• Each member of the group will be given the opportunity to read the relevant book before the session and to make notes of relevant points for discussion.
• Why not draw up a list of questions to apply to all books which you can refer to when reading.
• A lively discussion will ensue.
• After the discussion, choose the next book. It is often a good idea for a different member of the group to choose a book each time.
• You may wish to listen to and discuss a book that’s serialised on Radio 4.

(NOTE – Some people might prefer to have a ‘Book Group’ rather than a more general ‘Reading Group’. If so, just follow the same guidance above and ignore the next page.)

Discussing a magazine

• For a small sum of money contributed by each member each month, you can buy four different magazines. Pass the magazines around so that each week each person has a different one to read.
• Decide on which four magazines you will choose to read and place a regular order with the local newsagent.
• Decide who will collect them, take the money and pay.
• Each week, each of the four magazines will be passed on to the next person on the list.
• Rotate the order of who will start and finish with a magazine.

Magazine Sessions

• Once the time for a magazine session arrives you will each have read the same magazines.
• Discuss which features were most interesting to you.
• Cut out any articles that someone might like to keep -  recipes, patterns, health tips and financial tips, for example. If necessary arrange to make photocopies.

Discussing Poetry

During the month think about a poem that you would like to share with the others.

Poetry Sessions

• Each person will take turns to read a poem they have brought along to the group to share with others. They will speak about what it means to them.
• Let the discussion flow.
• Alternatively people might write their own poems to discuss.

Discussing Newspapers

• During the four-week period between sessions discussing newspapers, keep the articles that have interested you, have been significant, or have outraged you.

Newspaper Sessions

• Share the articles and debate the issues raised.

Starting Activities – Writing and Recording

You will need:

• writing paper, pens and pencils;
• a flip-chart and pens; and
• a mini-disk or cassette recorder.

What to do

• Decide on a theme for the session – if it’s part of an on-going programme this might have already been decided.
• Participants will bring artefacts, photographs, books and poems relevant to the theme to share with each other.
• As a group, discuss what the theme means, then break into small groups of two or three people each.
• Talk about, write about or sketch your thoughts on the topic to prepare for a short recording. Allow between 20 and 30 minutes for this.
• Take a break.
• Record each member in turn talking about the theme with the aid of their writing, sketches and the partners in their small group.
• You might choose to write as a group using a flip-chart – poetry is ideal for this.

Benefits

• Soon you will appreciate how the different members of the group choose to represent their views to prepare for their recording – one-word headings, detailed prose, verse, sketches, and plans for example.
• You will learn how to express yourself with the encouragement of someone else and, in turn, how to encourage someone.
• You will think about writing in a creative way – whether prose or verse.
• You will develop speaking skills – soon, your confidence in speaking to others will grow. This will help your breathing, posture, and confidence.
• You will learn to relax and enjoy it.

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