Don’t only enjoy viewing the art achievements of others. Take delight in helping to produce some community artwork yourself, suggests Donna Mizzi, founder of Art Group Wanstead
Members of Art Group Wanstead are preparing to show their work at the Wanstead Festival on Christchurch Green on 14 September. But this year, they will also be reaching out to local festivalgoers of all abilities and ages to help create a new piece of community artwork they can all be proud of.
Local residents and visitors, including children, will be encouraged to each create their own small piece of art on blank postcard-sized paper to go with this year’s Art Group Wanstead theme: Colour Me Happy. Participants will be able to create art focusing on any subject using any materials in any colours or tones – do whatever makes you happy. Photos will be taken of each of the postcard artworks. Art Group Wanstead artists Theresa Hardy and Sharon Quinton, who formulated the idea, will carefully knit the artwork together digitally to create a ‘patchwork’ banner that can be displayed in and around Wanstead. The Stow Brothers estate agents will be helping to produce it.
“It’s thrilling to see your own art on display in public,” says Sharon Quinton. “Contributing to a community artwork that will be shown again and again will be particularly rewarding.”
These pages show some of the works local artists have been inspired to create by the ‘Colour Me Happy’ theme, which will also be displayed at the festival.
There will be free workshops and demos on the Art Group Wanstead area of the big event throughout the day, ranging from mosaic to botanical painting to calligraphy and collage. If you believe you lack the ability to paint, watercolour tutor Brenda Coyle will help instil confidence with her one-to-one ‘Painting for the Petrified’ mini-sessions. Students from her Wanstead House classes will also exhibit their work.
Many local residents will have viewed some of Art Group Wanstead artists’ work last month at a pop-up gallery on Wanstead High Street. Local artists are always looking to display work, and this much-appreciated shopfront space was generously made available by Alan Patient & Co accountants.
Wanstead Festival runs from 11 am to 6pm on 14 September on Christchurch Green.
For more information on Art Group Wanstead, visit wnstd.com/art
