Wellbeing Painting with Acrylics
A crowdfunding project through Crowd Fund Lancashire and supported by Lancashire Culture and Sports Fund, Lancaster Community Fund and in-kind support from Lancaster Men's Hub.
Funding took place March to July 2024 and the project was delivered at two venues in Lancaster: St Thomas' Church and The Men's Hub between January and August 2025
Our project delivered free art sessions in accessible community settings. For recruitment we worked with community groups such as the Men’s Hub, Lancashire Youth Challenge and Prop-up to recruit people who had, perhaps not painted before but have a willingness to explore art and be creative. There was a total of 8 taught workshops delivered for an expected 16 participants in two groups of 8. One group was for under 18’s and the other for adults.
The first 5 sessions were designed to be playfully whilst developing a basic understanding of colour and picture making skills. Freedom of expression was encouraged from each participant as they develop an understanding of working with paint and brushes. After the initial sessions the participant were given a kit of paint, brushes, and paper to take away allowing them the opportunity to work independently for 3 weeks with a 1-2-1mentor drop in on the middle week. After the 3 weeks we had planned to come back together again for a further 3 taught sessions. More paintings were made based upon each students own ideas and imagery. That had been the plan, it turned out that most of the drop-in sessions became guided/taught sessions for half of the participants, This was useful has it helped to establish ideas and independent painting projects for each participant.
The final stage was for an exhibition and sharing of the work and experiences of all the participating groups. The opportunity came for there to be two public exhibitions, one in Lancaster Library 11th – 29th April which was repeated in The Thomas Storey gallery in The Storey, Lancaster between 29th July – 15th August. Social events were held at both venues where some members from the two separate groups had a chance to meet and see each other’s work.