Prompts - A Mixed Media Exhibition

More than an exhibition of artworks, Prompts is a celebration of community, connection, and the importance of play throughout adulthood.
Visitors are invited to journey through the creative prompts and discover the diverse visual conclusions reached by each artist. Contributing artists include Irene Parnell, Jane Dawber, John Pindar, Kathy Brown, Leander Nield, Louise Relph, Michelle Schofield, and Sandra Green.

Surrealist Zine-Making
Leave everything you think you know about art at the door – it’s playtime! Through fast-paced activities like string-pull prints, frottage and rolling inked marbles, we’ll let go of perfection and embrace chance. Reconnect with curiosity and enjoy the unpredictability of making.

Next, cut, layer and rearrange your creations into an abstract zine. Treat each page as its own artwork and the zine as a collection of your process. Look for hidden images and experiment with colour, texture and contrast.

Clay Sculpting
Looking back at our surrealist zines, what shapes and forms emerge from the chaos? Let’s bring them into 3D using clay. Think about structure, balance and how forms bend, layer and support themselves.
Once dry, paint your sculptures with a simple colour palette. Explore textures and patterns, trust your instincts and let intuition guide the process.

Sculpting Drawings / Collage
Returning to the page and inspired by Henry Moore’s sculptural drawings, we’ll continue developing our abstract forms. Using monoprint, wax resist and charcoal studies of our clay sculptures, we’ll transform and morph them into new 2D designs. Think about shading creates depth and how a background can place an object in an environment.

Fragmented Portraits
Study → Fragment → Reconstruct → Embellish

Create quick portraits of a partner with unusual rules: continuous line, non-dominant hand and drawing without looking.

Then cut up your images and rebuild them into expressive, abstract portraits. Rearrange, play with negative space and let logic go. Finally, embellish with line work and collage to bring everything together.

Surrealist Manuscripts
Combining surrealism with medieval manuscripts, we’ll create dream-like illustrated texts. Begin with automatic writing, letting words flow freely without structure or purpose. Highlight phrases that spark imagery and develop sketches from them.
Plan your layout and bring it to life with pen, paint, decorative lettering and gold leaf to create a finished piece inspired by your subconscious.

Abstract Landscapes
Combining abstraction and embellishment, we’ll create collaged landscapes inspired by Gustav Klimt. Our focus is on layered textures and patterns. Build an inventory of printed colours and textures, then cut, tear and assemble them into a landscape scene.
Finish by adding nature-inspired patterns with pen and paint to create contrast, detail and movement.

Intuitive Layering
Use masking tape to divide your page into six windows. Experiment with layers of watercolour and oil pastel, discovering how they react together. Keep your palette simple and work playfully, building colour, shape and texture.

Remove the tape and decide which composition feels strongest. Consider flow, balance and focal point. Recreate it on a larger scale, refining and developing the image.

Chance Mark-Making
Today is another day of play! Begin by painting sensations and experiences: the warmth of sunlight on your skin… oh no, now you’re burnt! What about the smell of petrol or the sound of rain?

Experiment with chance-based processes like ink blowing, clingfilm textures, ink bubbles and rolling marbles. Build an inventory of techniques before layering them together into a final outcome.

The Whole: Still Life
As photography made perfect representation easier, artists began experimenting with new ways of seeing. The Cubists believed depicting objects from multiple angles was a more truthful way to represent them. We’ll explore still life from layering viewpoints to create one outcome. Collage and draw studies of the scene from different angles on one page, then highlight interesting shapes and add colour to bring the composition to life.