8.2.14 National Libraries Day!

Burnley Library opened it's doors to a host of activities last Saturday and I was based in The Crib with the rest of the Undercurrents gang.
There was a short presentation about Arts Award and then I led a badge making activity with all the Undercurrents familiar faces and a few new ones. I never thought making badges could be so addictive and fun! The group made some fantastic designs and really got into the swing of things. We used cut up maps, photocopied river creatures and river-themed song lyrics to create our badges and I think they looked really wonderful.
We even had some younger visitors who were exploring all the different activities the Library had to offer and so it was a bustling and productive session filled with the usual great vibes and hilarious chat.

Brun River Winter Walk

Another wonderful river walk led by Vic last Friday. We took a group of five hardy Burnley College students along the trail of the Brun and into Thompson Park. The rain stayed away but thanks to one holy welly and a furious duck race some of us got a little wet! 

It's good to be back...

The gang is all back together...and a few new faces for me to meet too!
We had a brill time at The Crib today for our introduction to Silver Arts Award and the beginning of the next phase of the Undercurrents project.
So our fabulous Crib group so far are Mhari, Shannon, Jess, Toni, Molly, Megan, Shona & Danielle.
Rachel had dropped off some lovely new portfolios for them so we spent the day decorating them. First we looked at typography and drew out some serif and sans serif initials. Then, inspired by Victorian decoupage techniques the girls used a selection of cut out illustrations to collage their portfolio covers.
As you can see from the photos below, the did some lively work...

Intro to Silver session at the Crib

With Christmas and New Year out of the way, the Undercurrents gang got back together to begin a new set of workshops and to start work on SILVER ARTS AWARD!!

Jess, who has already done her Silver and is now doing GOLD came along and told everyone a bit about her experience.  Plus we watched the new Arts Award film and generally talked through what Silver is all about.

Then we made origami fortune tellers or "chatterboxes".  Everyone wrote inside 4 creative skills they already have and 4 creative challenges or things they would like to learn.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos on the day - whoops! But I went back to the Crib and got the chatterboxes out and got Cassie to model them for me so here they are:

At our next Crib workshop on Saturday 18th Jan we'll use these to help everyone decide their own personal Silver Arts Challenge!

Rachel