Arts & crafts

This course is designed to enhance your photography skills and take your craft to the next level. Whether you’re an aspiring professional photographer or simply passionate about photography, this course will provide valuable insights and practical techniques. At WEA we offer a supportive and collaborative learning environment where participants can exchange ideas, receive constructive feedback, and elevate their photographic skills to new heights. While the course doesn’t lead to formal qualifications, it provides an excellent platform for building a portfolio. You’ll have the chance to experiment, refine your techniques, and create a body of work that reflects your unique vision.

Ever wished that you had the skill to add figures to your artwork? Not quite ready to attend a life drawing class? This short course is an ideal introduction to the basics of figure drawing. Our experienced and supportive tutor will lead you through exercises covering proportion, posture, character and clothing. It will give you the confidence to create characters to include in your own paintings and feel able to tackle figure drawing from life. We will not be working from a life model. A great short course to get you started with figure drawing.

Explore your creativity through clay. You will learn about the materials, tools, and techniques to hand build pots using air drying clay. Create your own unique pieces of ceramic art, learning skills and techniques to complete your work with surface decoration, pattern, and texture. Ideal for beginners, the tutor will guide you through the process in a fun and supportive class. Join us to enjoy some calm creativity and find a new hobby for the summer.

Part of the WEA Art and About Festival 2024. This course will provide opportunities to make drawing studies of female sculptural forms from a variety of ancient cultures in the British Museum. This includes comparisons with examples from Greek, Roman and Aztec cultures found on pots, temple columns, busts and smaller figurines. These drawing activities hope to provide a deeper insight into their visual differences as well as symbolic details. This will then enable us to reflect on and discuss what we can uncover about women's lives and their roles in those societies. Meeting Point is the Lion in the main Atrium at the British Museum

Do you find yourself tired and stressed out at the end of the day? Are you looking for a hobby to relax you and help you unwind? Join me and discover the therapeutic art of paper-crafting and benefit from its profound impact on promoting a peaceful mind and lower stress levels. This course combines creative expression with mindfulness techniques to help you achieve a sense of peace and calm through the varied world of paper-crafts. On this course we will explore various paper-crafts from the clean and simple arts of origami and card-making to the messy randomness of collage, painting and mixed media. On our journey of exploration we will look at different mindfulness practices as we immerse ourselves in the joy of creating and crafting to help our general and mental wellbeing. On this course you will: v Practice basic paper-crafting techniques v Look at ways to be mindful while crafting v Engage in hands on projects designed to foster creativity and aid relaxation.. This course is anyone whether you are a long term crafted, a beginner or maybe you are new to crafting and are looking for a new hobby to engage in to help you deal with the stresses of life in the today's world. Everyone is welcome.

This course is designed for you to develop your creative side and use your previous clay hand-building techniques to progress to an intermediate level, plus a chance explore the different decorative styles working with Clay. By the end of the course you should have lots of different pottery pieces and different pottery skills. You will be in a group with others and led by a talented Arts and Crafts tutor. Your work will be taken away and fired in a kiln by the tutor and it will be yours to keep!

We will learn how to paint chosen animal portraits (students can get to paint their own pets, or those of friends) using line, tone, colour and perspective in coloured chalk pastel, acrylic and watercolour. Advice on buying art materials will be given, but please have chalk pastels and coloured pastel paper (can be brown wrapping paper, or scrap book) available for the first lesson. If buying from new I recommend Inscribe half sticks as they are good value. Artists studied will be Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Holman Hunt, Lucian Freud and countless other contemporary examples. Learn the rewarding skill of painting animal portraits - achieve an ability to create a likeness, while developing your own style in a friendly supportive atmosphere.

We will learn how to make abstract art that is unique and experimental, using chalk pastels, watercolour, acrylics, mixed media, and collage. Develop skills in all these media including brushwork and colour mixing. Artists studied will include JMW Turner, Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Hilma af Klint, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and countless contemporary artists. You will also be introduced to some lesser-known female artists who have been formerly neglected by the art establishment. A stimulating course which will help you will develop/improve your skills and creative thinking. Have fun and make art in a friendly like-minded group.

We will learn how to make abstract summer landscape art inspired by the world around you (and weather!), that is unique and experimental, using chalk pastels, watercolour, acrylics, mixed media and collage, developing drawing and painting techniques. Artists studied will include JMW Turner, Monet, Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse, Mondrian, Hilma af Klint, Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Krasner and countless contemporary artists. This course will also introduce you to some lesser-known female artists who have been formerly neglected by the art establishment. Have fun, develop your skills, and make art in a friendly like-minded group, inspired by this wonderful time of year.

This is a FREE 5-week course designed for those that enjoy crafts, with the intent in bringing people in the community together to enjoy spending time with like minded people. The course is aimed at any level, whether you are a beginner or have been crafting for many years. The course is created for you to work at your pace on your project. The tutor will give guidance and support with your craft project and provide may materials, although if you have anything to up cycle at home please bring along to the sessions. I you don’t use it we are sure someone will find a great use for it.