In collaboration with Vibes and Scribes and students from St. Angela's College, I invited the public to participate in a fun colouring project to ‘Colour in the Victorian Quarter’ as part of Urban October 2018 in Cork City.
This great experience allowed me and the students to bring art to the streets of the Victorian Quarter and to get the public in touch with it.
While managing in Vibes and Scribes, I decided to set up in-store demonstrations to introduce new arts and crafts to the public.
Vibes and Scribes has been the perfect venue to host my workshops. There is a fantastic selection of crafting supplies available that cover almost any craft. Working in this treasure trove for crafters, the teacher in me was inspired to share my love of art and crafting with the people of Cork, and further afield, from children to adults.
Over the course of the last twelve years I have had the opportunity to teach a huge variety of crafts. My workshops have included the following:
Introduction to oil pastels
Introduction to ceramics
Upcycling furniture
Upcycling & refashioning clothes & tie dying
Introduction to decoupage
Wedding crafts, including invitations, table settings, bunting & mass booklets
Introduction to jewellery making
Mixed media including paint pouring
Introduction to felting
Festive workshops incorporating themed crafts and sweet tree decoration
Print making lino printing, mono printing, collagraphs, screen printing
Mask making
Any of the above mentioned workshops can be tailored to suit you and your event. Corporate/private events, hen/stag parties, kids parties and all other groups can be booked here.
The Art Teachers’ Association of Ireland (ATAI) is a renowned organisation working to encourage schools to recognise the value of Arts as an integral part of the educative process. The annual ATAI conference is a fantastic ressource for teachers where they can share their techniques and ideas among fellow teachers.
In 2019, I was invited by the ATAI, in collaboration with Specialist Crafts, to give a 2 hour interactive masterclass to ATAI members. In this class I taught them how to create portraits using Specialist Crafts’ water soluble oil pastels.
I chose to focus on SC water soluble pastels as they are an extremely versatile medium. These specific pastels can be used as an oil pastel or apply water over them to create a watercolour effect. By choosing to focus on this product I was able to demonstrate to the teachers how one product can be used in a multitude of ways to cover various techniques and make their resources stretch further.
I also illustrated how teachers could transfer these newly learned techniques into their classrooms to cover many strands of the curriculum, including landscape and still life.
I was delighted to share my knowledge of oil pastels and ressources with my fellow teachers.
To download the drawings, just right-click on them and press save/download.
You can print them at home and share your masterpieces on social media using the hashtags #NationalDrawingDay2021 and #declanomearaart
