Towards the end of 2009 Artblock worked with a class of year 2 children at Dale Community Primary School, Derby, working on drawings & designs for an outdoor mural at their school. Then, when the snow began to fall and with very numb fingers, the mural began to take shape… Slowly!!! Thankfully the weather improved, [...]

As part of Derby’s annual Caribbean Carnival, Artblock was asked to create costumes & props to use in this year’s carnival procession & celebration in the city. Artblock spent a week working with groups of children from Pear Tree Junior and another week at Pear Tree Infants School, Derby. During our time at both schools [...]

In readiness of the school’s impending rebuild, Artblock spent a week at Arboretum Primary School, Derby, creating outdoor mosaic panels. During the first day Artblock worked with a group of children from Arboretum Primary & Hardwick Juniors, to work on drawings & designs for the final mosaic panels. Three designs were then chosen and throughout [...]

During February, March & April, Artblock embarked on a Creative Partnerships project at St. Chad’s Infants School, Derby. The brief for the project was to look at creative ways to encourage & improve reading within a group of year 2 boys. On a slightly smaller scale, Artblock re-visited a very similar project delivered in Mansfield [...]

Early 2010 Artblock delivered a series of workshops for various year groups at Pear Tree Junior School, Derby, to tie in with their syllabus topics. Year 4 students looked at Viking/Celtic designs and created their own press-prints. While year 6 explored art through recent decades. 1950′s Abstract Expressionist painting, 60′s Pop-art, 70′s Land-art & 80′s [...]

During the Easter break Artblock received funding to work on a collaborative art & drama project with Fifth Word Theatre. The project was aimed at 13 – 16 year olds and centred on issues surrounding journeys; more specifically asylum seekers in the UK and the struggles they encounter. In an intensive 3 days the participants [...]

February half-term saw Artblock running a family art workshop at West Park School, Spondon, Derby. Using Miró, Kandinsky & a bit of our own influence, children & parents were encouraged to create their own unique abstract art, using chalks, tissue, paper, pens & stickers. Despite the snow, the turn out was terrific and a big [...]

Early 2010 saw Artblock visit Brockwell Junior School, Chesterfield, during their environment week. Working with a selection of Gifted & Talented pupils Artblock spent two days constructing two large outdoor wire trees for the school grounds. The first day was spent creating leaves & flowers out of a selection of modelling wires, chicken wire & [...]

Towards the end of the year Artblock embarked on a series of projects for Erewash Councils’ Festival of Light programme. Diwali During October Artblock spent time in Ilkeston Derbshire creating clay Divas at Abbotsford Community Centre and at Kensington Junior School. Bonfire Lanterns Artblock worked with a class of year 7 children at Wilsthorpe Business [...]

As part of the national Learning Revolution Festival, Artblock will be hosting three daytime drop-in sessions, to give people an introduction to abstract art & painting. Participants will be given the opportunity to create their own pieces of artwork and will also have the chance to help create large canvasses, that will be displayed at [...]

At the beginning of September Artblock returned to St. Peter’s Junior School, Derby for another block of work. The new year 3 children worked with Artblock, extending the new playground mural, year 6 children looked at abstract art & helped to create 4 large abstract canvasses to decorate the school, while year 4 & 5 [...]

During the school summer holidays, Artblock spent a few not so sunny days transforming a large metal storage container in the playground of Pear Tree Infants School, Derby. All of the designs used in the finished mural had been pre-drawn by children from the Infants school.

During the last few weeks of the summer term, Artblock worked with year 5 children at Pear Tree Junior School, Derby. Using seeds, lentils, beans, rice, leaves & petals, the children all created small individual sections of three large well-dressings. After completion, the sections were all mounted to form the larger work, which will soon [...]

Early July saw Artblock spend two days at the Revive Centre in Derby, creating space exploratory machines with students from Da Vinci College, Derby. It was all part of Fifth Word Theatre’s ‘Mantle of the Expert’ drama project, in which all students spent the day in character as space scientists. This was a collaborative project [...]

At the end of June Artblock spent 3 days working with a small group of year 6 pupils from Hasland Junior School, Chesterfield. Eearlier in the year, every pupil had made a small wire sculpture and 2 had been chosen to remake, but on a much larger scale. With a box full of assorted wire, [...]

June this year saw Artblock spend ten very sunny, rain free days (thank you Mother Nature ) at St. Peter’s Junior School, Derby, painting two large outdoor murals. One of the murals, in the garden depicted large brightly coloured flowers & insects, while the other in the playground featured over 200 squared pictures, which were [...]

After more than 7 years we thought it was probably about time to give the online version of Artblock a bit of a much needed face-lift, which hopefully you’re seeing now (you never can be too sure when it comes to web design!!!). There’s still an awful lot of information to add to this new [...]

To help the school with their Caribbean Carnival, Artblock spent a day working with the children of Redwood Infants & Nursery School, Derby. Each child was shown how to construct a simple, but colourful, headdress which could be worn at the school’s carnival.

In the first week of June, armed with a bag full of fruit & vegetables,  Artblock spent a day at Harthill Primary School, South Sheffield, to help with the school’s arts week. Working through every year group, Artblock taught the children valuable watercolour styles & techniques.

Early in 2009 Artblock was approached by arts consultant Stella Couloutbanis, with a view to designing a flowerbed for Long Eaton’s West Park, with the children of Brackenfield Special School, Long Eaton. Artblock worked with children to help them create designs for the large circular flowerbed. After all the designs had been submitted, the school [...]

During February & March Artblock worked on a Creative Partnership project with the children & staff of Pear Tree Junior School, Derby. The school already had a group of practitioners working at the school; ranging from storytellers, poets & colour therapists. Artblock’s role in the project was to respond to the practitioners, children & staff [...]

During February & March Artblock spent time working on a Creative Partnership project with the children & staff of Nettleworth Infants School, Mansfield. The school was keen to improve children’s creative language thorough visual arts. During the two months the children explored monsters, to hopefully spark their imagination & thus aid their language. Each child [...]

During the February half-term Artblock worked alongside Fifth Word Theatre to deliver a Lottery funded art & drama week for children in the Normanton area of Derby. The theme of the project was ‘dreams’ and the children spent half of their time devising & rehearsing a piece of drama and the other half creating props [...]

February saw Artblock spend a very enjoyable & exhausting week at St. Peter’s Junior School, Derby, during the school’s art week. Artblock spent time working with every class & every child and covered abstract sculpture with year 3, dreamy Chagall with year 4, collage skills with year 5 and  colour theory & ‘box art’ with [...]

Early in 2009 Artblock returned to Brackenfield Special School, Long Eaton, Notts, to continue working on a Lottery funded project. Thanks to Awards for All funding, Artblock was able to work with the children of Brackenfield School on a series of outdoor mosaic panels for their garden. Designs were initially drawn out. Chosen designs were [...]

January saw Artblock deliver a creative staff training session for the staff at St. Peter’s Junior School, Derby. The day was specifically geared towards ‘having fun’ and ‘creating’, which would hopefully eradicate the fear and anxiety that many teachers or adults have when dealing with art related topics. Using a wide range of diverse and [...]

Artblock began the year by returning to St. Peter’s Junior School, Derby, working with every class during the spring term using a variety of different art forms. Year 3 looked at Kandinsky inspired abstract art, year 4 experimented with collage, year 5 got their hands well and truly dirty having fun with charcoal, chalks & [...]

Artblock ended 2008 making lanterns with the children of Chaucer Infant school, Ilkeston and with local residents at Erewash Museum for the Council’s ‘Winter Solstice’ celebrations. Leaves, tissue & glitter was added to clear plastic strips. When completed the strips were folded & attached to a plastic cup to complete the lantern.

October saw Artblock begin work on a Lottery funded, exciting body of work at Brackenfield Special School, Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire. Thanks to Awards for All funding, Artblock was able to work with the children of Brackenfield School on a series of outdoor mosaic panels for their garden and with friends, family & members of the [...]

For the city’s Diwali celebrations, Surtal Asian Arts enlisted Artblock’s help to run a clay diva making workshop at Derby University. Students were more than willing to get their hands dirty and enjoy a break from lectures.

During the summer term Artblock worked with a group of year 3, 4 & 5 Gifted & Talented pupils from Pear Tree Junior School, Derby. The project was kicked off with a visit to the Tate Liverpool and more specifically to the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibition. The pupils were all armed with pencils and [...]

During June & July Artblock delivered a few Saturday morning family art workshops, for people in the Mickleover area of Derby. During the sessions, children & parents were encouraged to get their hands dirty and to create their own clay & mixed media faces.

During June & July Artblock spent time working with the pupils of Bladon House school, Staffordshire. A school that specialises in speech and language disorders and moderate to severe learning difficulties. Art workshops were delivered throughout the school and were devised to be visually stimulating or tactile, according to the needs & abilities of the [...]