Woodland Management, New Events and an Art Walk

I'm on a woodland management course this weekend and yesterday I felled my first tree!  I was working with Ian and Andy who both own small woodlands, we started off with some smaller trees using the step method, but really... We wanted to fell a big one! So we all had a go at the 'beak' method and really made an impact on the area we were working on. By 3pm, the sun was streaming through and hitting the woodland floor giving some of the ground layer plants a chance to grow.

Its been a busy few months lately,  I'm crocheting lots, volunteering at a local school who run forest schools, studying and I've also started to volunteer at a wood to gain extra knowledge.

With Corridor Arts, we're also organising an Art Walk for May and talking to the Eden Project about having a Big Lunch Extras event the same weekend. The art walk will be in the Belper Parks and take place over spring bank holiday weekend.  The Parks will be filled with art work, yarn bombed and have some activities for visitors too.

Community Art

I've had a busy couple of weeks, we started building the mosaic at Belper Goes Green last weekend, I estimated about 200 people have taken part in putting it together and I'm really happy with how it's looking. 

I also had two helpers, Eleanor and Heidi, both from the university of Derby, who volunteered their time to help make the mosaic and chat to participants. There's still a bit more work to do before it can be installed, but its looking great. 

On Friday I ran a drop in workshop for Somercotes library, it was their 25th anniversary and this little treasure trove of tomes held a well being event with hand massages, refreshments and me, making silver anniversary decorations with memories from the past 25 years written on them. 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, art, books and people chatting about their lives. I spoke to some fascinating people including a lady with a wealth of qualifications including a degree in glass making and a lovely chap who made a fish, simply saying that he used to fish a lot. We also had some emotional moments as another lady remembered her father in law, he had died 25 years ago and she obviously thought a lot of him. 

This is the part of community art I love, it becomes a real privilege to listen to people's life stories and its always fascinates me to hear all their stories. 

Advice needed!

I've been thinking about how I could run a mosaic course. I'm basically self taught in this discipline and work in an instinctive manner.

This means I don't put any design onto paper, I do use some paintings or collages that I've made, but not in any 'design' way. They are purely inspiration. I'm not sure what is expected from a mosaicing course, would an element of design be expected? Or could I teach from a purely 'see how it goes' method? I usually put my main pieces down and see what works, then work tiles, glass and beads around them. I play by moving the shapes around. Would this work as a workshop? I'd also be interested in how I could develop a community project and I'm not sure where to start with this. Any advice or thoughts would be welcome!