OutsiderXchanges Artists 1st Workshop

OutsiderXchanges Artists 1st Workshop

On Wednesday 18 November the Outsiderxchanges artists came together for the first time with acclaimed artist Tanya Raabe-Webber  and our lead art tutor James Pollitt.

The first strand of workshops are sessions where artists based at Venture Arts get a chance to explore and share their artistic skills and interests. These sessions will take place every Wednesday up till the end of January. At which point the artists will be joined by an equal amount of non-learning disabled artists who will be recruited in the mean time.

Our Venture Arts artists are as follows: Leslie, David, Sarah, Horace and Barry. All of these artists are very accomplished artists, all with different styles and who use different types of media in their work. We will be previewing a selection of the artwork of each artist throughout the OutsiderXchanges project.

For our first session we decided to try out a portrait exercise. Using an overhead projector, sharpies and acetate paper and frames. Each of the artists – and myself (although my attempt wasn’t very good – I’m not an artist) paired up and drew a pen portrait on the acetate of our partners. Some of the work produced – even in this simple exercise was great – except mine of course.

During the afternoon session the artists decided to take the portraits a step further. Projecting the acetate onto paper, tracing the portrait onto this paper and then an afternoon of experimentation took place. Tanya and James as our art leaders encouraged all of the artists to experiment with media they perhaps don’t normally experiment with.

Of course one of the main advantages of having a studio space is our artists can experiment and focus fully on just expressing themselves with their art. Allowing the creative energy and thoughts come out through their work. Something that may not always be possible in a normal workshop or at home but in this space allows them that freedom.

Outsiderxchanges workshops will continue on Wednesday’s right up to the end of January. Tanya will attend about half of those sessions and James will be attending all of them.

By the end of the day all of the artists and Tanya, James and I were full of enthusiasm for what is to come and the collaborations and work already produced and experimented with during this first session.

Glen