Art Works For All
Just some of the work made at home by members of both Still Life groups, between March 2020 and September 2021.
Thanks to everyone who kept going, and to the artists whose seemingly boundless creativity and inspiration never faltered.
We salute you!
If you are interested in joining our group, please email escapeartistsnorthwales@gmail.com or use the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Supported by the Gwynt Y Mor and Rhyl Flats funds, and in the footsteps of our Conwy group, the format remains the same.
This is an informal, friendly and relaxed art workshop for anybody (16+) who has been bereaved, at any time. You don’t need to have any experience to take part, and the atmosphere is very laid back!
This isn’t art therapy, and we aren’t counsellors, but it is a chance to leave difficult feelings at the door for the couple of hours and focus on something completely different.
Everyone taking part – including the group organiser and workshop artists – has been bereaved, and we have a shared experience of how that feels.
This isn’t art therapy, and we aren’t counsellors, but it is a chance to leave difficult feelings at the door for the couple of hours and focus on something completely different.
And above all … you don’t have to be ‘good at art’ to take part
.If you would like to join us please get in touch with the contact form below
We are ALWAYS open to ideas and suggestions. If there’s an artform you would like to try, please let us know!
You can use the form below to contact us and we do reply quickly!
Thanks to our funders- the National Lottery – there is no charge – all sessions are free.
Updated September 2022
It’s been a long time coming but The Escape Artists’ groups are back in business after 18 months of working at it from home
And we’ve been mixing media with two weeks of painting inspired by music.
Ever tried dancing and painting at the same time? We have!
Our Conwy group i currently at capacity because of CV19 rules, and our open door policy is suspended.
We do have space in our Rhos on Sea group. Click here for details...
Hopefully normal service will resume…one day!
We have been keeping busy and creative as we look forward to meeting again.
Chrissie has created a fabulous dress using old – or should that be pre-loved – denim jeans. (This was how Biba started! Watch this space!)
Beth has been inspired to have a go at rubbing pastel chalks over wallpaper using and kitchen utensils – to wonderous effect!
Meanwhile, I (Jill) have been enjoying gardening and photography. This self-portrait with water lily was taken at Bodnant.
Click on the images to see them in all their glory!
What is it about paper boats that makes them so satisfying? Nostalgia? Maybe…
Thanks to Sian’s guide to the art we have been turning out a stylish flotilla of little boats.
First in was Bethan’s, complete with authentic seashore finds and the boat’s crew fashioned from plasticine!
Next in the fleet came Rachel’s jaunty craft on a lively sea.
Escaping is the not – so-hidden theme for our poetry illustration this month,.
What with everything that’s going on in the world a week marooned on a desert island – no masks, no food shortages and the isolation without the pings ? What’s not to love?
Beth was straight off to a blue lagoon somewhere tropical with this clever combination of water colour and collage. Rachel was right behind her with this lovely interpretation of John Betjeman’s ode to Ynys Mon, in chalk pastels. Just floated in on a raft is Gemma with this idyllic blue lagoon…
by John Betjeman
The sleepy sound of a tea-time tide
Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried,
Too lazy, almost, to sink and lift
Round low peninsulas pink with thrift.
The water, enlarging shells and sand,
Grows greener emerald out from land
And brown over shadowy shelves below
The waving forests of seaweed show.
Here at my feet in the short cliff grass
Are shells, dried bladderwrack, broken glass,
Pale blue squills and yellow rock roses.
The next low ridge that we climb discloses
One more field for the sheep to graze
While, scarcely seen on this hottest of days,
Far to the eastward, over there,
Snowdon rises in pearl-grey air.
Multiple lark-song, whispering bents,
The thymey, turfy and salty scents
And filling in, brimming in, sparkling and free
The sweet susurration of incoming sea.
by WB Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
The Island
RS Thomas
One particular time after a harsh morning of rain
The clouds lifted
The winds fell
There was a resurrection of nature
And we were to emerge
With it into the anointed air
I wanted to say ‘we will remember this’
But tenses are out of place on that green island
Ringed with the rain’s bow that we had found
and would spend the rest of our lives looking for.
by Rachel Field
If once you have slept on an island
You’ll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,
You may bustle about in street and shop;
You may sit at home and sew,
But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.
You may chat with the neighbours of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.
Oh, you won’t know why, and you can’t say how
Such change upon you came,
But – once you have slept on an island
You’ll never be quite the same!
Everything’s coming up roses, daisies and goodness knows what in the gardens – and the same is true for us after Ruth asked us to look at flowers in the same way artist Georgia O’Keefe did.
Below are our floral tributes to the flowers in our gardens, allotments, wayside verges…
As you can see- the results are blooming marvelous!
Salvador Dali’s Galatea of the Spheres was this week’s inspirational famous painting, chosen by Sue.
The 1952 work of art was something of a love letter from Dali to his wife Gala who managed all his affairs so that Dali could paint.
First to float in were Rachel and Beth’s circular confections, coincidentally conjured from a very similar palette of blues and ochre!
The Escape Artists