Church Road Mural

This year’s biggest project has been working on the Church Road Mural. 

Zoe Power and I were commissioned by Bristol City Council to design and paint a community mural on the wall of St George Liberal Club.

It’s bold and colourful and celebrates the history and diversity of the Redfield neighbourhood.

I led print based workshops with school children, young people and vulnerable adults where they helped design motifs, which were then incorporated into the mural design.

The chosen design is a patchwork of individual segments representing different elements of the local community. The mural includes swans and herons to represent St George Park and trams to represent the history of Church Road, as well as musical images to reflect local festival Redfest.

We’re chuffed with the great response’s we’ve had so far.

So get in touch if you want to show your wall some LOVE and treat it to a colourful bespoke design. (Email: sophie@sophie-rae.com or call 07905895116).

Team Building workshop with The Soil Association

I held this one at Hamilton House for twelve lovely people who work at the Soil Association.

The Folk House…a little bit of magic tucked away down a little alleyway...

...up Park Street in Bristol. In case you haven't heard of Bristol Folk House, it's definitely worth a visit. It's a beautiful place in central Bristol, an adult education centre, it provides a variety of part-time day and evening classes and courses including: Arts & Crafts, Pottery, Writing, Languages, Music, Dance, Drama, Fitness, Personal Development and more.

The Folk House is a self-funding charity that aims to help the local community take part in ‘learning for pleasure’ courses in a friendly, relaxed environment.

They hold regular art exhibitions in the lush café bar, which also serves delicious organic, locally sourced food….Oh YEA…The month of July will see the cafe walls covered in my prints. Original monoprints will be displayed, many of them I produced in India and are of places in India. 

And here are a few snaps from the most recent course I delivered called Monoprinting with Stencils. Thanks to the lovely participants for letting me take photos of their work.

If you like what you see you can book a place by going onto the Folk House website and clicking on Printmaking. Then it's 'Monoprinting with Stencils'. I run a course and a day workshop on a Saturday. Complete beginners warmly welcomed. 

Workshop's with Mount Batten School

 I spent two day’s with year 10 student’s of Mount Batten School, teaching them my process of monoprinting with stencils. 1 day per class. We worked with their theme of natural forms. Here are a few photos of some of the lovely work produced. (There was loads of lovely work, but I couldn’t get a photo of it all)…

Hello December, you snuck up there!

….and BOOM the festive season is upon us. You know what that means.. time to treat the people you love with a gift thats unique, and preferably made by someone in your local area. Well thats where….

The Little Shop...

…comes in, in BRISTOL. It's packed full, like every inch, with beautiful handmade things.
We've got: T-shirts, framed prints, cushions, earings, cards, soap, mugs, tea towels, knitted cacti….

Here are some snaps of my wares.

The Art Troupe

Have you heard about it yet? Well if not you should certainly check out the swish new website and read about the creative types bumbling around Bristol and their creatives offerings.

http://www.thearttroupe.com 

I recently ran a printmaking workshop with The Art Troupe in Hamilton House, Bristol.
You can book me or any of the other artists listed on the website for pretty much any group situation,  (e.g. corporate event, birthday, children's party, team building, hen party). It's an incredibly enriching activity and a really lovely way to de-stress and work alongside your mates/colleagues doing something a bit different.
Heres a few snaps of the fun evening.

You can also enquire about attending a workshop as an individual. We will try to create a date that a group of about 8 or so strangers can also make!

Get in touch by visiting The Art Troupe website. 

Exhibition at BoConcept

Back in the summer I was asked to exhibit some of my work in BoConcept a unique danish furniture store. It looked quite a home next to the lampshades and above the sofas. It was up for about three weeks alongside the work of other great Bristol artists. It was lovely that they wanted to support some local talent.

My workshop with Young Bristol at The Station

I had a great time with a group of young people at The Station in the summer. I led a three-hour workshop teaching them my printmaking technique and they made prints based on their journeys to the venue. This work would be part of their Arts Award.

What is Young Bristol?

Young Bristol is a youth-driven charity that works to offer a choice of opportunities and experiences for all young people. By working in partnership with a range of community-based youth clubs, and directly with young people through a programme of activities, we respond creatively to their needs and realize their capabilities.

My next workshop at The Station with a new group of young people is on October 29^th. This time we will have from 10:00 – 15:00.

Here are some photos from the first workshop:

Workshops with Imayla

In July I got another chance to work with a great organization called Imayla.

Imayla offers fun learning opportunities for young people, families and groups, combining creative arts and environmental activities inspired by the natural environment. They aim to make connections across cultural, artistic and physical divides.

I worked with young people aged 7-16. We used stencils and my magic rollers and ink to produce individual flags, which we then joined together to make bunting, which could be used for the rest of the project over the coming months.

Upcoming workshops and exhibitions - Hamilton House, Stokes Croft

Hello, 
I've been busy choosing new frames, printing and framing and organising workshops and making new work for a Pop-Up shop (in Hamilton House, open for the month of June).
My next exhibition is on for only a week in the heart of Bristol, Stokes Croft. I will be exhibiting my prints from India as well as a few other pieces in the gallery of Hamilton House, next to The Canteen, 24th-30th May. 

I'll be setting up this Friday or Saturday and quite likely I'll be working in the gallery space on Saturday doing some printmaking so you can pop in to see how its all done and with a small donation come away with your very own hand printed greetings card or print. 

OPEN STUDIOS AT HAMILTON HOUSE:
Also a date for your diaries here, June 14th. The artists studios of Hamilton House are opened up to the public, so you can see behind the scenes where beautiful and amazing things are created and chat to some of the artists. I will be doing another drop in workshop here for just £5 (suggested donation).

There's loads of other workshops going on as well, for really cheap or free! 

Printmaking at the beautiful Boiling Wells

Also here's a lovely testimonial from Fiona who works with a great organisation called Imayla and hired me as a freelance workshop leader, to facilitate a printmaking workshop with people with mental health disorders and their families. Here's what she said, 

'Sophie is a very skilled and creative arts practitioner, it was very easy to plan our activity with her and she has a gentle and encouraging approach to participants some of whom where quite nervous about what they were being offered - she's a good find and we'd definitely use her again'

New Meadow and Poppies print for Southmead Hospital

Two new monoprints inspired by our natural surroundings. Created using my usual method of hand cut paper stencils, a durathene roller and lovely colourful ink. 

I have just passed on thirty one of my prints to the framers. Once framed they are going to be adorning the walls of one of the wards in the new Southmead Hospital in Bristol. 

These are both slightly different versions of prints I already had on my website. Because there are thirty one rooms I needed to produce some new work. 

Also I've just started on a new course called Participatory Arts in Health and Social care and its great. It's very rewarding working within the community and using creative practice as a form of therapy. 

Woodland Inspired Monoprinting with stencils

Yesterday I met some lovely creative people. Amy, Fiona and Tom showed some serious skills in my woodland inspired mono printing workshop. I held it in the reception/gallery space at the front of Hamilton House. Alongside a lovely exhibition of Katharina Nyilas's work. Check out her blog here.
Here's some photos of the evening.

Also… I've got a few workshops coming up at MAKERS gallery/shop/studio, all round creative venue in the heart of bristol. It's a lovely little cosy venue to do a workshop in, no more than 5 people can book on and also you can look and be inspired by all the lovely things in the shop. Check out their website here for more details and how to book.

Fiona even said about one of her printed creations that she thought it was the best piece of art she'd ever made.

My printmaking workshop at the Arnolfini

On Saturday 25^th of January I led a printmaking workshop as part of the We Are Family day at The Arnolfini, in Bristol, relating to their current exhibition by Joëlle Tuerlinckx. It was a busy, fun four hours.

I had some great volunteers helping me manage the budding artists, around 30 of them at a time and about 100 people over the afternoon.

People of all ages got to try a selection of three different printmaking techniques.

On the first table was a collection of different materials, from foam to leaves to cardboard, which you could cut out and arrange on your plate to create a collagraph to print from.  

The second table was monoprinting with stencils, based on how I make my own work and the third table was drawing on the back of paper, on top of a layer of ink, to get an inky drawing on the reverse.

The three techniques could also be combined to create a multi-layered print.

Thanks for having me Arnolfini.

My next workshop for people from 16+ is at Hamilton House on Feb 11^th from 17.30-20.30. Please scroll down my blog here for more details.