This weekend was the 3rd annual Kirkstall Arts Trail. This year  I opted to run a family workshop for Abbey House Museum (Leeds Museums). I’ve been running quite a few story based workshops, and thought a Kirkstall Stories inspired workshop would be great.
We were moved over to the Abbey’s Visitor Centre, which was a great idea, as we were based alongside the main KAT hub, and tea and biscuits on tap!
The day has been very warm, and we were visited by lots of people; sharing the space with a face painter was brilliant, even parents joined in, I haven’t seen many butterflies around recently, but saw plenty today. We worked well together, whilst waiting to have their faces painted, children could take part in the Stories workshop.
Some of the little storybooks the children created were inspired by their time in the Abbey, what they had seen on the trail, or they were just inspired by brilliant imaginations (they all had brilliant imaginations). I am a great fan of using different materials to illustrate with, and we had a variety materials, coloured paper, glittery bits, sticky eyes, coloured pens and pencils, and plenty of different fabrics to use (kindly donated by my friend Kim Searle). I find if someone isn’t fond of drawing, then collage with materials is often a good choice. I also had my trusted story cubes, and photobooks of things mostly photographed in Kirkstall as inspiration.
I really enjoyed the workshop, and sitting with families listening to what they had been up to on the trail, it’s wonderful that Leeds has so much to offer families that is free to participate in.
I didn’t see much of the trail sadly this year (due to illness), so I look forward to seeing all the photos of the weekend being posted online.
Please click on the images and scroll through them, they give insight into the book creation and tell more about the stories the participants were illustrating.
-
Create
Participants busy creating books and stories -
Create
Participants busy creating stories, with lots of tea -
Create
Cover of a participants book -
Create
Rory’s Story Cube -
Create
Participants busy creating books and stories -
Spots by Hannah – Cover
A story by Hannah, inspired by the spotty fabric she used for the cover of her story -
Spots by Hannah – poem
Big Spots, Smalls Spots, Tall Spots, Spots on a ladybird, spots on clothes, spotty dogs, poodles!! Cheater spots, leopard spots, cloud leopard spots, Hyena spots, there is so many we could go on forever! -
The Javelin by Delphi – cover
-
The Javelin by Delphi – page 1
This story starts off telling us about Sports Day, and the Javelin -
The Javelin by Delphi – page 2
But we don’t know who placed first -
The Javelin by Delphi – page 3
By this point the story begins to become a little surreal -
The Javelin by Delphi (to be cont.) – page 4
Then we are told about goats and sheep and the diets they have. Sadly the Abbey was closing, so we never get to find out how Delphi’s story will end -
Dad by Jessica – front cover
Smiley happy faces (and Jessica had a wonderful flowery piece painted on her face, which made the book even more happy and smiley) -
Dad by Jessica – back cover
Smiley happy faces (and Jessica had a wonderful flowery piece painted on her face, which made the book even more happy and smiley) -
Dad by Jessica – page 1
This is Jessica -
Dad by Jessica -page 2
This is her Dad Steve (wearing a lovely sparkly pink sweater) -
Dad by Jessica – page 3
This is them together, both happy and smiley -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey – front cover
Inspired by the very Abbey he was sitting in -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey -page 1
A photo of the Abbey – this is the old but epic Abbey -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey – page 2
Did you know the Abbey was built 1000 years ago? [Maybe under 900, but a long time ago all the same] Did you know they didn’t have toilets in those days, so they pooped in glory holes. -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey – page 3
Clubs, there are festivals and clubs at Kirkstall Abbey. A little story, the Abbey is like a Parkore Place. It looks epic in it’s glory. -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey – back page
Read this to see all about Kirkstall Abbey and all it’s glory -
The History of Kirkstall Abbey 5
The History of Kirkstall Abbey and the book his sister created -
The Magic Fountain by Hannah – front cover
The Magic Fountain (as inspired by the story cubes) -
The Magic Fountain by Hannah – page 1
There are two horses, and they are near to the magic fountain -
The Magic Fountain by Hannah – page 2
A random man says ‘I am having an ice cream’. The girl is happy, ‘yes’. But then ‘oh no I’ve killed him’ somehow killing the horse. And the horse goes up to heaven dead. -
The Magic Fountain by Hannah 4
The horse then gets splashed by the water from the magic mountain, and comes back alive – as the magic fountain has powers that give life. They all lived happily ever after. -
The Rain by Pamela – creation
I was telling a story about a time I was in Trinidad and it rained so hard that the world in front turned white! It inspired Pamela to make a story about rain. -
The Rain by Pamela – cover
Using fabric from the bag of goodies I was given -
The Rain by Pamela – page 1
The fabric pattern also looks like rain -
The Rain by Pamela – page 2
More rain, so much rain -
The Rain by Pamela – page 3
Pamela had been to one of my other workshops, The Accessible Path, so it was lovely to see her and her daughter back again for this one -
Kirkstall by Sia – creation
Pink is Sia’s favourite colour. -
Kirkstall by Sia – cover
All the pink that she could find -
Kirkstall by Sia 3
Sia, took her book away to sketch the things she saw as she walked around the Abbey and the Art Trail -
The Castle – cover
We used the Story cubes to come up with a story about the Abbey, as it we imagined it was a ruined castle -
The Castle – page 1
The young girl was waiting for her sister and mother to finish getting their faces painted, (she didn’t want hers doing), so we sat and made stories from the cubes, and she took the book away to finish at home.
All photos taken on iPhone and edited in Lightroom