We all know how children are such little sponges, soaking up new experiences and art can be one of the most exciting and rewarding moments for so many children and from such a young age. Since I graduated I have spent 90% of my working life creating art and making a living through selling my artworks, cards and original batiks, designing all manner of art workshops for all ages and abilities, in schools and in community groups, from Junk puppet making, shadow puppets, felt making, body mapping, foil embossing and batik.
I eventually honed this down to just batik as this workshop was the most exciting and ticked all of the boxes for teachers and children.
I designed workshops so that every child could experience the whole process, applying wax and paint to the drawings that they created beforehand. I then enlarged this and composed the 70 x 40’’ batik (some with over 60 drawings on).
Creating art courses for children is so rewarding and stimulating as you see how children translate art into their own unique transcripts. When I worked on my workshops for children, they were incredibly empowering and did eventually influence over 50,000 children, helping them discover their own creative identities. I still have children who remember working with me when they were as young as five years old and still tell me about the positive impact it had on them, which is so wonderful to hear.
This year the Children’s Art Weeks is from 29th June to July 19th , where creative activities will take place in the UK both online and in schools, from libraries to country parks and heritage venues. This is such a joy to be aware of and if you can take part in any of these events do try. This year each week will have a different theme, from Week 1, The Natural World, Week 2 Connecting across the generations, Week 3, Literacy and creative writing. Even the London transport museum is diving into their collection of rich designs, which many of us may take for granted but are actually really quite great.
I think art should be part of every day and if these week’s highlight this even more for children across the UK then that will be a wonderful thing!
Write a comment