I was very busy yesterday in the good company of some cracking good artists, from age two to seventy. Our “Make and Create” environmental art workshop at Newton Abbot Museum or “Newton’s Place” yielded some little gems, inspired by the wonderful wildlife and threatened animals from around our planet.
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A great variety of creations were made from recycled materials and wildlife art paintings on small canvases. We did use acrylic paints, yes a form of plastic but avoids the nasty chemicals used for cleaning oil paints. And these are NOT single use plastics – these are miniature masterpieces to hang proudly on the wall for years to come. Artists used all sorts: from recycled egg box and dried leaf hedgehogs to sewing cute chickens. We also had several gorgeous collages and paintings of sea turtles. Sea turtles, pandas, big cats and polar bears were clear animal favourites!
One seventy year old enjoyed painting her own butterfly and said she probably hadn’t painted a picture for decades, probably not since school! We also had a ‘before an after’ collage of a thriving forest and dying forest – I like to think of this in reverse instead ie ailing forest rejuvenated by treeplanting . One mum had the genius idea of painting the spectacularly coloured scarlet macaw in reverse by allowing her toddler to splash paint all over the stencil and canvas then peeling off the stencil to leave a clean white bird silhouette – excellent teamwork! Plus a metaphor for our threatened wildlife?
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This is just a small selection or artworks pictured here. All will be on public display in an exhibition space in Newton Abbot Museum from Thursday for a month; open and free for all visitors to view. If you want to share your own environmental art too, please use the #environmentalart hashtag so we can see your wildlife and planet inspired art.
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Thanks to all the lovely staff at Newton Abbot Museum for collaborating with me to run this environmental art themed event and WWF-UK for the inspiration and support.
Mx 😉
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