Tuesday 19 July 2011

Finished Hornbill!!

The crew!!

The girls loving the Hornbill...

...against the Campsie Hills!

THANK YOU!! to all the children who've shared their ideas and worked so hard and so often over the summer to complete the Hornbill. A huge thanks also to the other members of FAB for their many talents and support during this project. Lastly, thanks to Jane and Phil from Easyspace and Mary from The Elephant Family for bringing this project to us.....next time we see the Hornbill will be in The Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh on the 16th August.

Monday 18 July 2011

Update on Hornbill painting


Working on the wings...


...finishing off the front...


...and bringing it all together.

In just over a week, lots of us have added different patterns and colours onto our Hornbill and he's looking pretty fantastic.......can't wait to see him in Edinburgh next month!

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Filming with STV


coming up with ideas for the Hornbill design


drawing out ideas on a paper template

Check out FAB ArtWorks TV debut here;
http://player.stv.tv/programmes/the-hour/2011-07-12-1700/

We're in the third section of the programme.

Hornbill painting so far

using stencils to put the Fleur-de-lis pattern on the breast


a beautiful gold pattern on the wing


'the rope' pattern down the spine


the distinctive eye is stencilled on

More pictures to follow as the painting of the Hornbill progresses!

Monday 11 July 2011

Jungle City Sculpture

FAB [Friends of Art Balfron], who run Balfon ArtWorks classes, have been asked to take part in an exciting charity Public Art event called Jungle City in Edinburgh later this summer. We were approached by Jane Robertson of Easyspace, who are sponsoring the children from ArtWorks to decorate a life-sized sculpture of a Hornbill bird.

The Hornbill is endangered due to loss of its natural habitat in South-East Asia. The Elephant Family is the charity behind the Jungle City project and our decorated Hornbill will be one of 150 Sculptures to be revealed on the 16th August in the Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. The sculptures will then be placed around the streets of Edinburgh and the public will be able to follow trails and track or 'collect' all the animals. As well as our Hornbill, there will be elephants, tigers, crocodiles and orangatans to spot. The project hopes to increase awareness of the animals plight and raise money for The Elephant Family charity by auctioning off the sculptures later in the year.

This is a really exciting project to be a part of and if it wasn't exciting enough STV came to film us designing the Hornbill. We took the interiors of Alexander 'Greek' Thomson as our inspiration for our design. 'Greek' Thomson, one of Balfron's most famous sons, was an eminent Scottish architect in the mid-nineteenth century. He drew his inspiration from Greek, Egyptian and Islamic influences, so it seemed fitting to use his global inspired designs for our Hornbill.

We'll post more on this as the project progresses, for more information on the project:

http://www.elephantfamily.org/
http://www.jungle-city.org/
http://www.easyspace.com/elephant_campaign/jungle-city



a detail from Greek Thomson's wall decoration


design detail from a floor tile


Fleur-de-lis inspired wall decoration


bringing two designs together


taking inspiration

Exhibition - June 2011

We had a fantastic time putting together the children's artwork from this year for our annual exhibition in the McLintock Hall, Balfron. In the process we unearthed pieces we had forgotten about so it was great to see all the art together at the one time.

Thanks to everyone who made it along, for those you who missed it, here's some photos from the day. We had two workshops running; one making collage based artist trading cards and the other making foil sculptures, some of which are on display in Balfron Library this summer.

You can catch up with everything in the Stirling Observer or the Milnagvie and Bearsden Herald.

http://www.stirlingobserver.co.uk/stirling-news/local-news-stirling/news-stirling/2011/06/24/artworks-exhibition-huge-success-51226-28930479/


...everyone's busy making trading cards and in the background, foil sculptures....

Totem pole inspired 'junk' sculptures


Hand built and thrown pots - the finished product


The Terracotta Army comes to Balfron!