All about Art Club

Art Club is a fun, relaxed and informal space for making and exploring together. Each session is designed as a moment to step away from pressure or perfection and allow lots of space for happy accidents through play, mark-making, and intuitive flow. We work alongside each other in real-time, sharing prompts, experiments and reflections, with the focus on showing up rather than producing finished work. All Art Clubs are available as replays, and each new session adds to the back catalogue to watch and play along with.

• Art Club is usually on the first and second Thursday or every month at (UK) lunchtime (here is a handy time-zone converter). Times do vary - I post the dates every month in a monthly dates for your diary post, and I also update the calendar links post, which is always pinned at the top of my homepage. =

• To join, click on the live link at the time specified

• It’s a chatty informal art-making session. We start with a hello and chat while I set up, and then I lead us with a 10 minute(or so) warm up, where we take a line for a walk, make marks and remind ourselves that all art is good art!

• I select an image - which is sometimes a photo I have taken, sometimes a phot that has taken my fancy, and sometimes an image I’ve selected from one of my vintage books collection.

• I pin the the overhead camera which shows me working, and I talk through what I’m making. We usually meander into creative chitty chat during the session, and I dip in and out of what I’m doing.

• Each session lasts around an hour, and I post replays afterwards. I make an Art Club Bundle post each month with both replays in the one post. I normally edit out the first 10 minutes while we chat and I set up, so join live to see me worrying about not being ready, as always! But it’s normally a nice chance for us to have a meandering chat as I get ready.

I’m a firm believer that all art is good art! And I know how easy it is to fall into perfectionism when you are creating art; after all, you want what you make to be good, and pretty and worthwhile. But, ironically, it can be this desire that scuppers your actual opportunities to improve, grow, learn, get better!

So Art Club is designed to allow all of that play, making mistakes, experimenting, trying new things that we avoid, in order to not ruin the other work we’re making! This is why I start Art Club with a warm-up; it’s a reminder that this is a safe art space, a chance to make some bad art, and learn in the process! I have made plenty of artwork I’m not going to be putting in my portfolio anytime soon, but I’ve also made pieces I’ve sold, made into cards, concertina books, and prints, and I’ve also learned new techniques and strategies that I apply to my paid illustration work.

I hope you find what you’re looking for here! This newsletter has brought so much fun, beautiful connections and joy to me, and if you join, I hope it will bring the same to you!

Love,