The Day We Took Some Video Of The WelArt Gallery

Below are a few videos giving a tour of our WellArt Gallery in Kendal. Still worth a visit if your in the area!!

The day we made little wire figures!

Well now we have the shop gallery the WellArt turned its thoughts to creating some pieces of sculpture that could go into it. We plan to have a multitude of small figure heading up the wall of the shop then out across the ceiling.

We made them by bending wire, three equal pieces, first for the head and body then the arms and the last bit the legs. Twist or hold them in place with masking tape. Then tightly wrap round the figures with newspaper or scrap and hold with masking tape again to form the rough shape and bulk out the figures. Finally wrap bandage with plaster of paris just like they use in hospitals for breaks. You can buy it in art shops but you can also get it from some craft shops or online cheaper.

Of course you dont need to do figures you could do animals too! Ant way multiples always look good.

Final job when the plaster has dried is to paint them All the same colour works well but really bright and luminous colours too. We will put them in our gallery on Thursday so I will take some pics and put them here.



The day we organised our own gallery!

Great news.  Jo and I have managed to negotiate the use of an empty shop as an art gallery! We will be filling it with artwork by people who go to WellArt, volunteers and service users from Workbase and other individuals connected with the charity who create artwork.

The shop is in the Elephant Yard in Kendal near the top of the yard. You can park in the M+S Car Park and walk down or walk up from the main street by the side of Costa Coffee. We will be open between Friday 23rd September and Tuesday 27th September inclusive between 10 am and 4 pm.

We are planning to have art demonstrations and rag rugging demos as well as have people painting in the shop. We will also hold that fridays WellArt group in the shop. Please come along if you can.

We will post some pics when we have it set up.

The day we made the front covers!

Not in a tabloid sense of course. We bought some very cheap notebooks from a bargain shop and then used all sorts of bits and odds that we had. Simply a case of applying the glue. Some used a sealant which was black but I prefer good old PVA which dries clear. The keys came from the keyboard of a broken laptop. Computers can provide many interesting bits to use in artwork and the keys from the keyboard can be turned into all sorts with a bit of imagination.

The day we made our chalk pastels all wet

We have used chalk pastels before. Sometimes called soft artists pastels but not oil pastels. These pastels are good for quick sketches and getting colours down and can be blended and smudged with your fingers. Having done this however we experimented with wetting them too. Draw your image in chalk then run over them with a wet brush and the effect can be brilliant vivid colours and sometimes a little like watercolour. It's worth having a play to see the effect you can achieve. These images are from the WellArt group having just such a session.

The second day we tried lino printing

After finding our feet the first session this time we went for it and produced some great stuff. I almost like the lino pieces as much as the prints. Here is a selection from the second session.

The day we ruined the kitchen floor and tried lino printing!

For this session one of our group members, Debbie, took the lead as she is keen on Lino printing and has produced some outstanding art work using this technique. First of all you need lino. We recommend buying some proper artists lino as the stuff off the kitchen floor is very hard to cut into. A top tip from one of our volunteers Sian though is to gently heat it before you cut into it.

You also need some special shaped tool that allow you to make different cuts into the lino as shown above. We sketched our designs on different piece then set about cutting. It is tricky to start off but as you become more confident you find yourself creating smooth lines. When you are happy with your cut you then roll your lino with ink. We used printing ink. When you have a good coating drop your paper on top and smooth over it with your hand. The first print is usually poor as it takes a few goes for the lino to fully take up the ink so keep trying if your first print is poor.We were so absorbed we ran out of time so we had to do a second week!



The day we took a whole new perspective!

We had been talking about how people made pictures look 3D so we had a look at perspective. We decided to keep it simple and stick to single point perspective (2 point in the future). This effect is really simple to achieve with a few rules in mind. First draw a horizon line across the middle of your page. Then pick a point on this line called the vanishing point. Many people put this in the middle but you can have it to either side to make it interesting. All line then head towards the vanishing point. A road for example would get thinner and thinner until it met at the vanishing point. We had a go and here is what we ended up with!

 

As long as you remember that items get smaller as you head for the middle and darker in colour. Items appear big at the top and bottom of the page and small in the middle.