Christmas Wreath Making

On our last day of term before Christmas, after the Christmas Party, we all made some fabulous wreaths for our front doors.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Press release with photos

Painting for Pleasure is a Leamington-based community group for disabled people and those with difficulties or in danger of becoming isolated, and has successfully completed their project 'Our Community - Where we live'.

This was kindly funded by the South Leamington Community Forum Grant Fund with a grant of £1,422.00.

The group celebrated the end of the project with an open day where the participants' family, friends, and the local community came to see the work produced in an art exhibition and enjoyed coffee and cake.

We also displayed boards painted by participants for the Warwick Folk Festival.

Painting for Pleasure provides painting and drawing sessions on a Wednesday during school term-time, at the Westbury Centre, South Leamington.
New members are very welcome.

Painting for Pleasure Coffee Morning

Our Community - Where we Live

We would like to thank Warwickshire County Council for granting "Painting for Pleasure" a South Leamington Community Forum Grant.

We will be working on a project called "Our Community - Where we Live". Please visit again to see the artistic interpretations of our members. We have started painting some boards for Warwick Folk Festival, on the theme of "Mythical Beasts" to line the entrance to the festival.

We have space for new members. Please get in touch to find out more if you would like to join us.

 

Poetry by Anna Harper

This project has lead to the general realisation that we have a wonderful poet in the group.
Her poems have become a valuable part of each canvas.

Patch me up and send me home

Patch me up and send me home
Once forgotten, haunted by the past.
Patched me up, sent me back to fight.

Not a care for how I felt as I could kill.
Worshiped by many, I'm treated like a king.
Patch me up, but don't send me back!

                                                                      Forgotten

Remember the stories, the larks we shared,

The ones you carved hidden from the world,

Of drunken nights, we wish not to evoke.

Remember the noise, that crashing godly

Sound, of slaughtered men crying in agony.

Killed by heroes, believing they're right.

Group celebrating work created during our WW1 project

Voices of the First World War

Link to details of the exhibition
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/events/event/1560/voices_of_the_first_world_war_exhibition_at_the_library_of_birmingham

3-foot canvas

Heritage Lottery Fund Celebration Day

Photo taken by The Observer, Leamington Spa
Read the full article:
https://leamingtonobserver.co.uk/news/painting-group-helps-budding-artists-cope-with-disability-or-isolation/

Refreshments in the Pump Rooms cafe

7-foot canvas from the left

7-foot canvas from the right

Warwick Horticultural & Allotment Society Annual Show 2018

The Painting for Pleasure WW1 display

WW1 canvas Pump Rooms exhibition Preview

For 2017 to 2018 the group has been awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

We spent August 2017 to the end of March 2018 researching World War 1, particularly the changing attitudes towards disability and injury, now and then.

We all enjoyed looking at books and researching the internet, going on field trips and inviting specialists to talk at the Westbury Centre.

During April to July we worked on a 7-meter canvas depicting the events of WW1, taking inspiration from the copy of the Bayeux Tapestry after a visit to Reading Museum.