Ryedale Farm Museum – Art Event!

COLOUR IN THE MARGINS - Ryedale Farm Museum

Porcelain Flowers with Sian Hughes

This was a rolling activity open to families and adults.  On arrival, families were encouraged to research and explore the wild flowers and plants on site accompanied by Lizzie Cooke from Plantlife, and the Creative Activity Journal we had devised and printed.

Back in the workroom they developed their sketches and drawings with Sarah Jane and also worked with me to make a porcelain flower. Everyone had a small ball of clay which they rolled and then cut into sections to make petals.  They then chose leaves and plants to press delicate impressions into the individual porcelain petals to create a unique flower.

Finally they gave their flower a newly created scientific name, and common name and imbued it with various properties. These were entered into their Creative Activity Journal to take home and add to. The flowers will be fired and posted to Ryedale Farm Museum for collection in late October.

Drawing and wire sculpture with Sarah Jane Richards

Armed with a sketch board and pencil families explored the cornflower field and made detailed drawings of the wild plants, looking closely at different types of leaves and petals. The more people looked the more they saw and they were thrilled to notice minute differences in the plants, copying them carefully onto their boards.

 

Back at the studio participants re drew their drawings using colour, focusing again on detail,being creative with scale, composition and texture. They then sculpted individual wire organic shapes and mounted their drawings on them, to display alongside the porcelain flowers as a celebratory installation of the often overlooked wild plants and flowers.

Such a great couple of days working with some fantastic families. We learnt a lot and felt the families did too.

And we were thrilled to find a critically rare species in the corn flower field - the Red Hemp Nettle Galeopsis angustifolia

The Creative Activity Journal has been created to support Colour in the Margins project. An interactive activity book which uses creative ways to explore, discover and share wild flowers found along your walks.

Free to download here: My Creative Activity Journal

We would love to see your adventures with it – feel free to share on social media tagging @naturebftb and @love_plants