Freeing up the Artist with Brigitte Scott-Florek

Our survey last year told us that some members would like a few daytime activities. In response to this, last Friday Brigitte ran a morning workshop which was both experimental and great fun. We started with drawing in charcoal from our feelings and intuition, using both our right and left hands, with our eyes shut! Then we progressed to simple pastel pictures, but working as a team, passing each picture round the table for others to add their own expressions. As time went on, we became much quicker at making marks and more confident in our approach, eventually producing some very pleasing work. Peals of laughter rang out as we forgot about the outside world.

A whole class project was then undertaken in acrylics using just cards to push, draw and lift the paint; again moving round the table in quick succession.

Our final pieces were individual and based on our newly acquired confidence – some used paintings they had brought along and others started from scratch, building upon them using mixed media including collage. Attendees felt they produced something they would not normally have tried and were surprised at how pleasant it was to enjoy the process of playing with materials and working as a team.