Do something about it.

Last week the Big Lunch Extras team from The Eden Project took me on a mystery tour up to Northfleet, next to the Thanes in North Kent. 

An ex-colleague of mine, Peter Scollard, works (often unpaid) with other volunteers to improve their community environment and open spaces, sometimes without any permission from anywhere!

It was a huge surprise to see Pete, and for him to see me (he didn't know I was coming up either) and to see the work he, and Carl, Gary, Kelly and team are doing to improve local open spaces and improve morale in the community.

It was inspiring to meet so many other people and groups that Big Lunch Extras help and mentor during the presentations and an absolute pleasure to deliver a Drawingonthings art workshop in Wallace Gardens Housing Estate nearby!

Check out http://nowallsgardens.org/

And http://www.biglunchextras.com

For more info.

Drawing on things at the Big Jubilee Lunch - St Blazey

I hopped on Eden Project's "Big Green Bus" recently (that's not a metaphor by the way it's a... big, green, bus) and went along to the St Blazey Big Jubilee Lunch.

This neighbourhood street party celebration for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee took place at two sites in the Cornish town of St Blazey, near St Austell during the bank holiday weekend.

Local residents organise the events, Eden supports them and I was at both sites drawing people's ideas on canvases made from recycled skateboard ramps!

Four canvases, and four sets of ideas, at once.

Pics courtesy of DrawingonthingsTV. Video coming soon

Some canvases drying before their owners take them home.

The whole day had a great neighbourhood street party atmosphere! Many people turned up to both sites. I was asked to paint all sorts of pictures including, kangaroos, vampires, superman, peoples' names, zombies, cars, aliens, cartoon characters and waves.

Everybody got their pictures signed and were allowed to keep them as a reminder of the day.

Sketching ideas straight on the wall (Drawing on Things style!)

Newquay Youth Centre Open Day, yesterday.

The white part of the wall is the start of where the larger art will begin throughout the room, so this is a consultation with young people who love living in Newquay and use Newquay Youth Centre or, for some, who only found out about the centre yesterday during the open day.

The art project is to express the many enjoyable and positive things about living in Newquay.

To get the ideas flowing I suggested ways that everybody could begin doodling, despite how well they thought they could draw, and the drawing didn't stop all day!

About 30 new artists added ideas, shapes and colours to the wall, including some of the newspaper photographers (who couldn't resist when I offered them the chance!).

The artwork for the main part of the wall will be done by me in September or October. And by looking at some of the ideas coming through yesterday, this will be a very creative project indeed!

Edit: Here is a link to a post with pics of the artwork completed by me, based on these sketches, ready for when the young people return to use the youth centre (after the summer holidays) later this week.

Barefoot Finale

This Saturday was the Barefoot Games Finale at the Eden Project.

I was invited to paint on a huge wall, along with with graffiti artist Mau-Mau, during the celebration of all that Barefoot Games has achieved over the past year.

There were live bands, samba dancers, drummers, stilt walkers, giant paella, us, other artists, and a whole lot more!

The Barefoot Games project only ran for a year. During this time it reached out to a vast number of young people in the area to share positive skills and help them achieve personal goals.

It was great to work with this team and, although Barefoot Games has now ended, The eden Project will continue to benefit the wider community.