I spent an afternoon at one of Parbold Festival's visual art workshops this week. It was brilliant.

The lead artists on the project, Andy and Sharon Shaw are not only utterly lovely they are also brilliant and inspiring artists and teachers.

The last time I did anything properly artsy was probably my art GCSE (where I did a charcoal portrait of my friend with an unfortunate bit of shading on the upper lip...) So I was a bit concerned that my artistic contribution wouldn't be very good. But Andy and Sharon demonstrated some art techniques that all the participants, from the youngest child to the grandparents who brought them, could grasp and experiment with. We worked on some flags for the procession, large banners and posters.

It was also lovely to meet Naomi, a fantastic artist who is helping with the project. More on her reflections on art for the Parbold Festival and her own work here.

Here are examples of some of the artwork we produced during the session.

Work-in-progress. This is watercolour and wax on
cloth. Andy and Sharon demonstrated how to colour wash
and blend the paints to create different effects. 

Work-in-progress. The dragon creature. Each
scale was individually shaded during the workshop
by artist Naomi.

The next visual art workshops are Thursday 20th and Friday 21st August,  10am - 1pm, 2pm - 5pm at the WI in Parbold. We will be creating the dragon creature - a massive sculptural structure that will process through Parbold during the Festival. The session is open to 8 yrs and up and will be inspiring for both children and adults. I'll be there - I can't wait!