Shannon's arts review of her trip to Towneley Hall

New workshops for the Summer!

Get involved in Undercurrents this Summer!

Summer project 2014 for 13 to 19 year olds

Make artwork inspired by Burnley Rivers

Go on a River Walk – actually in the river!

Have fun and make new friends

Get your Arts Award

Sessions are FREE but you must book in advance, and you must come to all 4 sessions.

Tuesday 29^th July, Friday 1^st August, Tuesday 5^th August and Friday 8^th August

All sessions 12 – 3.30pm

Sessions will be held at The Crib, Burnley Central Library

 To book your place contact Rachel Hawthorn on 01282 425011 ext 3218 or email rhawthorn@burnley.gov.uk

30.5.14 A bit of planning and a bit of drawing

It was great to be back at The Crib even though we were a small group today, but we had special visits from Rachel and Cassie too so that was nice!

First on the agenda was to spend some time talking about the BIG SPLASH Ribble Rivers event that will be happening on Sat 26th July in the town centre. The group are going to use the planning, preparation and delivery of activities during Big Splash as a way to fulfil their Leadership Skills section of their Silver Arts Award. 

So we had a good discussion around what kinds of activities they'd like to do and came up with badge-making, laminated/sculptural art and watercolour postcards. The girls were able to decided on different roles they would take on to help plan and deliver the event and we decided on deadlines and key dates that we all needed to work towards. We agreed that Dani-Jade and Shona Mae would be responsible for the publicity and marketing of the activities with help and advise from Rachel and Angelica would work with me to decided what art materials and equipment we'd need for the activities.

The girls who weren't at the session today: Shannon, Molly and Mhairi will be responsible for organising the film screening and artwork unveiling at the Crib.

The girls wanted to spend the rest of the session drawing so using some images of river side creatures I'd brought in we all chose a critter we liked and did some sketching. I also brought in an ace book called Freehand which feature lots of different illustrators so the girls were able to make their drawings individual to them and experiment with styles a bit.

10.4.14 - Crib editing session

We were a little low in number on Saturday, only Mhairi, Shona and Molly, but enough of us to have a productive session and start working on our Super 8 film edits.
The girls have all been studying hard for their exams so I couldn't help feeling really chuffed that they still make the time to come and take part in the sessions in the middle of such a stressful time.
Film editing isn't everybody's cup of tea (I happen to really like it) so I know that diving into such a focussed and digital process was only going to keep everyone's attention for so long. However the girls got stuck in though, as usual and did their best. They got to grips with the software really quickly and enjoyed working with their footage.
Molly is going to start putting the words from her monologue over the top of her footage and Shona and Mhairi will probably add some still images and sounds.
Sorry no photos this week...I managed to remember my camera but forget the battery! Doh!

Here's what happens when I invert the negative image...

Digitising the Super 8 film

I've spent most of the day digitising all the Super 8 film that the Undercurrents group shot and processed.

There's some absolutely gorgeous footage in there. The film comes out in negative when processed using the coffee and soap method...like the images below...

5.4.14 - Arts Award Catch-up Session

We had a good planning session today and caught-up on everyone's progress towards their Arts Award Challenges.
It was good just to have chance to touch base with everyone and listen to their thoughts and ideas as the last two film processing sessions have been a bit hectic. Next time we meet we'll go to Thompson Park and everyone will have a series of mini Art Tasks to complete that involve drawing, sculpture, photography, poetry and film. The outcomes of these activities will help flesh out their Arts Award work as well as form the basis of another wonderful Undercurrents exhibition and film screening.

We finished the session by projecting all the Super 8 films they'd shot and processed and there were so many gorgeous bits of footage.

I'm really looking forward to editing the film with them!

Unfortunately we had a bit of a blip during the session as Molly realised she had misplaced her phone. So she was naturally quite upset and distracted so the session ended on a bit of a low which was a shame.