I was invited to be a Collage Artist for Diversity Day at St.Georges Secondary School for girls. Over 40 Specialists in diverse fields such as the Quaker, Japanese Tea Ceremony, Belly Dancing, Mathematics, Meditation, Exploding Science, Street Dancing, Poetry and so on were asked to come and show, share and enthuse the whole school. It was a fantastic and utterly uplifting experience. The energy at the end of the day was electric!

I ran 6 x 45 minute back to back art sessions for 20 girls at a time who had chosen not to do Art, girls who didn’t like to make a mess, all with long hair and nice clothes…

Take a 3d item from my collection, take some pre-painted papers and tear, cut, scrunch, fold to create textures inspired by samples I’d brought in. Use collage image elements to be surreal, textural, patterned or figurative. Bold, big brushy painterly marks to cover the A2 areas. Big brushes only. I’d asked the non art staff to help mix pots of different blues and greens. They had fun too…they’d never done this before. Throw the paint at it! Be quick, don’t worry, don’t think too much! It was a quick showing of what you can do with paper and a 3d object…stick or wire the objects on…45 minutes isn’t long!

…the brief was to cover an A2 board according to the blue, green, yellow areas indicated. All 450+ panels would be assembled in the gym at the end of the day to make a giant picture which nobody knew. We went to the hall with paint dripping, very textural panels…it was a massive collection of different art styles in each piece, amazing!