Children's art and craft workshops using all sorts of materials and techniques

3 colour lino cut print. Design was inspired by a slapstick circus routine

I’m an artist who enjoys working with a wide range of materials. 
Back at Lichfield College when I had finished my Foundation Course in Art and Design the external examiner commented that because of my abilities in such a wide range of techniques and materials I actually had a choice of artistic directions that I could follow.

As it turns out since graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2006 I have mainly been making mixed-media sculptures (using textiles, found objects and industrial scrap) but more recently I have also made collages and now two short films too. www.frillipmoolog.co.uk 

In my outreach work www.allsensesart.com I have mainly specialised in wet felt-making. 

This has been for two reasons. Firstly I discovered the therapeutic properties of the wet felt-making process and have found that it is an amazing medium for relaxing participants and I have devised a range of techniques which have made it accessible to people with a wide range of abilities. I am very proud that I have been able to work with people of all ages and abilities and that I have helped to empower them and to raise their self esteem.

The second reason is simply the practical issue of storage space for workshop equipment and materials.

But it is good to remind myself of all the other creative activities that I have led over the years and which I am sure I will continue to do as and when opportunities arise.

Some of these have been workshops led on a voluntary basis and others have been me working as a professional freelance artist.

At Lichfield College I did several years of life drawing which I was quite accomplished at however my heart was always in non figurative work and especially in mixed media. 

Collage of images from magazines on a handprinted base. 

I had a very strong art education a school and we did a lot of drawing. I found that I especially enjoyed dramatic pencil work and also using indian ink for drawing.

Study of butterfly wing- watercolour and indian ink

I was delighted when I was able to include a drawing session in the felted firebird project for Wirksworth Festival  
The children’s bird drawings were so wonderful that I digitally scanned each of them and resized them and then made a digital file which could be printed and assembled into a beautiful little zig-zag book. 

 

Drawing with non-conventional materials is also great fun. In some of my sessions children  and young people have used pipe-cleaners to ‘draw’ 

Pipe-cleaner 'drawings' made by a young person in Ocean Ward Birmingham Children's Hospital

or in my sessions with Foundation 3D design students we have used wire, springs and straws amongst other things.

3D Drawing made by a Foundation Level student at MMU

Of course these mixed-media materials lead onto sculpture so making vegetable creatures is an obvious creative session. It is especially good as it is enjoyed by children of all ages from the very young upwards.

Vegetable Creatures made by children at John's Lee Wood Family Camp 

Since 2004 I have run several creative workshops for children and families at an annual  family camp John’s Lee Wood in Leicestershire.

We have done glass painting sessions several times. Painting on jam jars which we later used as tea-light holders and also using offcuts of glass supplied by a local glazier. 

A beautiful angel painted by a 10 year old at John's Lee Wood Family Camp

We have made our own paper by making paper pulp from shredded, old maps, paper bags etc.

I enjoy working with recycled materials so I developed a workshop where we made badges by embossing designs on recycled aluminium drinks cans. This was an idea that I developed which was inspired by metal artist, Val Hunt’s, work. 

Making Peg Dollies was a lovely session. Once made, the children used the dollies as puppets and we even had a session where we interviewed the children and asked them all about their dolly; his or her favourite food, hobbies and favourite TV programme etc.

Peg Dollies are always a favourite with all ages of children. I made this one!

On occasions at John’s Lee Wood Family camp I have also assisted in workshops which have been led by other artists - willow weaving workshops and mini hooked rug making sessions are two which I assisted with. 

Chris and Jack doing some willow weaving at John's Lee Wood Family Camp

small patches of hooked rug are really effective addition to this teenage boy's bag

In the last couple of years I have broadened my skills even more and have experimented with Fimo polymer clay. Using a pasta maker to make millefiori patterned beads which are then assembled to make a butterfly brooch is simple when you know how! 

And finally, Card-making is a relaxing activity and even more fun when you do it with a friend for company. 

And I have even had a hand-made card sent to me by a young lady to say thank you for the craft birthday party that I ran for her. 

Mental Health improved by Wonderful Scenery and Creative Activities

A sneak preview of one of the countryside inspired felted pictures made during our day in the Peak District.

Borderland Voices, the Leek-based Community Arts for Health and Mental Wellbeing charity is an amazing organisation! 

When I first read about it and the work that it has done over the past 16 years I knew that I wanted to work with them if at all possible.  Based in Leek in Staffordshire their lovely bright art room is haven for anyone who is suffering from any form of mental distress as it is a place where they can regularly spend time on creative activities. 

The art room (previously a vegetable shop) has a deep bay window which they use for an ever changing exhibition of creativity. 

"The projects on offer provide a safe, supportive and friendly environment for those taking part – which gives people the ability to express their emotions in artistic terms, something that is especially useful during times of emotional distress, such as bereavement. The fact that there’s no referral process, as well as the knowledge that those involved can drop in or out at any time, means that everyone can be included as much as they feel necessary." Excerpt from their listing on the ArtsHealthandWellbeing website. 

Andy Collins is the coordinator at Borderland Voices and working with her was a real pleasure. Andy devised a way that we could make the felting activity, that I had proposed, a full day and also a very special offsite activity in the heart of the Peak District National Park. Firstly she linked with Rethink Mental Illness in Leek so that some of their service users could also take part and next she devised a plan where our felting day could be part of 'A Breath of Fresh Air' (a project part funded by Ecominds and the Peak Park’s Sustainable Development Fund)

Fresh air, exercise, being in the countryside and creativity often go together but it is certain that they each contribute to a better sense of wellbeing and can definitely contribute to improved mental health.

Andy booked a minibus and planned the creative trip to The Dove Valley Centre in Sheen. 
I drove up from Lichfield and wow what wonderful scenery! We had an enthusiastic group of fourteen, including Andy, Elspbeth from Dove Valley Centre and also our minibus driver. 

The fresh air and scenery was inspirational 

A poem was written on the day too. 

No one had made hand-made felt at all before so after soaking up the scenery and a cup of tea we got started by making some pre-felt. 

The rubbing motion is rhythmical and always relaxes people

Then I showed the group various ways of ‘painting’ with wool fibres. There are so many options, blending small tufts of coloured wool fibres to get subtle shades, cutting shapes from the pre-felt that we had made in the morning and also using some interesting textured knitting yarns to add surface texture and lines. 

Some hand-spun jacob wool yarn used here. (photo by Andy Collins)

A good use of shapes cut from pre-felt for this design

As we were part funded by the Peak Park’s Sustainable Development Fund we were aiming to take our inspiration from the countryside around us. Even though we were working indoors this was still easy as the barn studio is upstairs and so we had a clear view from the windows. 

You can almost feel you are out in the wide open countryside here 

Really colourful and with a couple of sheep on the horizon too

At the end of the day we had more tea and cake and it was great to look at everyone’s felted pictures and have that wonderful sense, not only of personal achievement, but also of shared creative experience. 

This man is a keen amateur photographer and decided to play with inverting colours. 

This creative lady took inspiration from some geraniums in pots in Dove Valley Centre courtyard. She is a keen card maker and applied her design skills to felting.

Me (Kirsty E Smith) admiring everyone's felted pictures. (photo by Andy Collins)

It was a lovely day and I was really pleased that images of the felted pictures featured on the Borderland Voices calendar. And I also had the pleasure of another creative session with the group a few months later up in their art room in Leek. In that session we made some multi-coloured felted balls which we made into hanging decorations and also a few multi-coloured felted bead bracelets too.

  

Fun and rewarding creative sessions for young people in hospital

'Magic' Ball mini-beasts are one of my most popular felting activities and are especially good for drop-in sessions

Since 2008 I have been one of the artists who have had the privilege of working with young people while they have been in Birmingham Children’s Hospital; these creative sessions have been some of my most rewarding experiences. 

I am sensitive to people’s needs and can pick up on feelings or anxieties quickly and have an ability to put them at ease. 

I also see everyone simply as people and ideally I prefer not to say ‘young’ people or ‘older’ people. I feel that we are all people just at different stages of life. 

I work with all sorts of materials when making my own mixed media sculptures but over the years I seem to have done most of my outreach projects using the unusual medium of felt-making. I have found that felting is an amazingly versatile medium and I have developed my own methods to speed up the process - this has been especially useful when working with people with limited attention spans. I have also developed techniques which make it easier for people with limited physical abilities. 

Felting is a process which starts by participants first being intrigued by the wonderful range of colours of soft sheep’s wool fibres. 

When we get onto the wet part of the felting process everyone seems to get very relaxed and absorbed; the rhythmical rubbing with lovely Olive oil soapy water never fails to relax.

Making sure that we get results quickly is important too as sometimes I am working with a group of people who have very short attention spans or who have anxiety disorders. This sea themed felted wall hanging was made very speedily by a group of young people in Heathlands Ward at Parkview CAMHS clinic in Moseley, Birmingham (one of the largest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the country).

Before and after pictures of the fishy sea themed wall-hanging

I have also worked on other wards. In one afternoon I worked with three young people on Irwin Ward and we made this wonderful space inspired sparkly wall hanging. 

Detail of space themed felted wall-hanging

I had gone all prepared to make something 'Doctor Who' inspired but when I arrived Callum (not his real name) had gone on a home visit. Being flexible and having ideas up your sleeve is pretty important when you are working in hospitals. The three young people who made this space picture came and went from the session as their energy allowed (they were all suffering from anorexia). But no matter how low in energy they were they all made a felted bangle at the end of the session too! It is always especially nice to make something that you can take home with you at the end of your time in hospital.

Getting the staff involved too is an additional reward when running creative activities in hospitals. Again at Parkview I worked with young people in Ashfield ward; there was only three in this group but they all had very different interests and needs. I was so proud of Alex who, on my second visit, made this Aston Villa felted picture. 

I made yellow pre-felt in advance of the session. This meant that Alex could trace the shape of the Aston Villa lion and then cut the shape from the pre-felt using his paper template. 

His confidence was extremely low but with the encouragement of one of the support team he managed to move from a simple felted ball to a felted picture. Raising his confidence and leaving him with something that was a concrete reminder of his abilities was exceedingly important. 

Sophie had big ambitions and worked away very quietly and made her own 3D felted cat in the same session- again one of the staff encouraged her by making his own felted cat alongside her. This was a great example of working alongside someone; just by sharing the experience you are helping them to gain confidence, you are both doing something new for the very first time. 

Two of my most admired felted wall hangings have been made by children on Ward 7, a clinical ward, in the main, Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham Children’s Hospital site. For this Summer Arts Project my brief was to engage as many patients as I could; to go to the hospital with no preconceived ideas of the theme of the wall-hangings but at the end of the day the expectation was that I would have facilitated the making of two wall-hangings which would be on permanent display in the ward and be seen by children of all ages. 

I took a selection of images along with me- Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Mario and Spongebob amongst others.

Very quickly I had a group of three girls aged about 10 and they were very keen to make a Hello Kitty themed wallhanging, I also had a student nurse in the group and she was very enthusiastic too. We worked around children going off for treatments but that can be tricky as I wanted to make sure that everyone was involved will every stage of the process.

Hello Kitty wall-hanging.
Top- dry wool fibres laid out. Bottom- after the wet felting process

With the first wall-hanging completed we were able to show more patients what we had made and in the afternoon a couple more joined my little ‘felting posse’. Believe it or not we worked from a tiny image on someone’s smart phone. I had admired her new Muppets tee-shirt (it just had Animal on it) and that was where the idea of making a muppets wall-hanging came from. It is amazing what you can do with just an image on a smart phone to work from! 

I was especially pleased that we made Miss Piggy’s necklace using circles cut from sparkly fabric. I have found that you have to go to hospital art sessions with a wide range of materials... just incase ...as you never know what you might need!

Ward 3 - now called Ocean Ward - is  one which I have worked in on several projects in 2008, 2009 and 2012.

I am still so very proud of the felted glove puppets that were made in the All About Me project. After my first session with the young people in this ward I discovered that football was a what most of them were especially interested in. I took a note of favourite teams and players and went along to the next session armed with images printed onto cotton fabric. The young people were wowed that I even knew the players numbers (I did need to research this!) When finished, the glove puppets were able to play table-top football with the big stuffed felted ball that Amir had made in the first felting session. 

Some of the young people had dexterity problems but that didn't stop their enthusiasm and everyone was really proud of their achievements 

On Ocean ward we have made quite a range of creations, Mini-beasts, cushions, felted flowers purses and another large felted wall-hanging. 
This was based on a fantasy digital game and everyone in the group added to the design. 

Even boys like making their own special purse

Cushions and flowers made by children in Ocean Ward. Part of the 'AllAbout Me' creative sessions at Birmingham Children's Hospital

Completed wallhanging designed and made by children in Ocean Ward

Here you can see how everyone's ideas were included in the fantasy PC game wall-hanging design 

And finally, even at Christmas a stay in hospital can be made more fun; we even made our own small felted Christmas Stockings. 

It is my philosophy that everyone, whatever their abilities and personal circumstances, has the right to learn a new skill and to have the opportunity to make unique artwork of their own. My mission is, “To nurture and encourage people’s imagination and creativity in a fun and enthusiastic way”. 

I feel privileged to have been part of these young people’s lives especially during a hospital stay which will have been a challenging time in their lives and I look forward to leading more exciting creative sessions with children (and indeed people of all ages!)

www.allsensesart.com 

Ceramic and Textile Carousel for Derbyshire Schools Library Service

Primary school pupils adding their own handmade cups to the carousel made by Kirsty E Smith and Wendy Johnson

I was recently invited to contribute to a really interesting project in Derbyshire. There were plenty of reasons why this project was right up my street. Firstly I got see behind the scenes of the Derbyshire Schools Library Service Collection (more about this later), secondly I was working with five other creatives including visual artists, musicians and a poet (a nice change from working alone!) Thirdly it included two busy days of working with lots (240) school children and lastly it culminated in an exhibition and workshops which took place in a very unique building; a octagonal gallery space within a school built in 1914.

The King George Gallery a unique space within The Ilkeston and Ormiston Academy, Derbyshire.

This was an outreach project where I could draw both from my own practice www.frillipmoolog.co.uk and also my experience in facilitating fun and interesting creative workshops www.allsensesart.com

We started the project, called ‘Dear SLS’, with a visit to the Derbyshire and Derby Schools Library Service Collection and what a special place it is; the building itself was inspirational. 

Vaulted ceiling of the Derbyshire and Derby Schools Library Collection

Rather than being a library of books this collection is a library of objects, artifacts from around the world, prints of well known artworks, original paintings and also a good collection of textile art - stitched fabric collages from the 70’s in particular. 

Stitched fabric collages; these were especially popular in the1970's

The aim of Dear SLS was to help publicise the service and encourage more schools, artists and individuals to make use of this unusual object lending service. People will always have a stronger understanding of and connection with something that they have actually held in their hands rather than just seen an image of on paper or on screen. Pixels can’t match the real thing!

Dear SLS also helped some year 10 students gain their Silver Arts Award; they selected objects from the collection and curated their own exhibition with these objects. Ceramic artist, Wendy Johnson, and I looked at the items that Tim Berry had selected for his Fairground inspired exhibition (some gorgeous stuff that it was very easy to be inspired by) 

Colourful and bold illustrations in a children's book, Night at the Fair.

Detail from a well known Barbara Jones lithograph (1945)

and also the objects that had been selected by the students working with the theme of People and Places. There was an eclectic range of items including a Norwegian terra cotta cup, a Japanese tea ceremony set, some Polynesian Tapa cloth made from tree bark and a pair of dainty little embroidered silk shoes.

Wendy and I decided to work together to make our own contribution; a carousel which would be part ceramic and part wood, wire and textiles. This is the first collaborative piece that I have made and although not actually a Frillip Moolog sculpture I did use techniques that I have used in previous Frillip Moolog beings.

Me (Kirsty E Smith) with student Tim Berry and ceramic artist Wendy Johnson (right)

The primary school pupils who visited the exhibition completed our carousel by making and decorating their own paper cups which were then hung within the carousel. 

I designed a template for the cups and then printed it directly onto coloured card. The pupils decorated, cut out and  assembled their own cups.

Cups seemed the obvious connection between the cups in the People and Places exhibition and the tea cup roundabouts that are a longstanding favourite fairground ride with very young children. 

Terracotta cup from the Norwegian collection within the Schools Library Service and fairground teacup ride 

Despite having to work very quickly the students really rose to the challenge, they took inspiration from various patterns and decorative motifs within the exhibition. 

Motif copied from a hand painted African wallhanging and stylised eyes inspired by those of an Indonesian carved goddess (both items included in the People and Places part of the exhibition). 

Looking up inside the carousel canopy is one of favourite views

The other participating artists having a musical relax within the gallery space at the end of a busy day. 

Other artists contributing to Dear SLS: 

Matt Black

Julian Butt

Debi Hedderwick

Wendy Johnston

Paula Moss

Diana Shepherd

Maria Whatton

Dear SLS project blog

If you are interested in visiting the Dear SLS exhibition in The King George Gallery, The Ilkeston and Ormiston Academy then contact Kate Le Provost Community and Arts Development Officer on 0115 9948635

for opening times.