Success stories

Arty games

to play with family and friends online

Written by Martina, ACL Creative & Cultural Learning Tutor

Over lockdown it was back to virtual coffee and cake again. I should be used to this. For years, my husband’s Dutch uncle used to amuse and outrage me by sending smiling pictures of himself from coffee houses in the Hague, eating yummy apple cake. I was reminded of it last Friday, when we had a family Lock-down Party and spent a good deal of time, scrutinising the deliciousness of other people’s party snacks. But when we weren’t groaning about the food we couldn’t share, we played a very good game – an Arty Game that given the current situation, is IDEAL for group video chat or conferencing apps, like Zoom.

Everyone has pencil and paper. Someone picks a subject, for example a rabbit, and draws it so no-one else can see it using basic geometric shapes – circles, triangles etc. Next, they describe their subject, shape-by-shape to the others, who attempt to draw it themselves.

And if you want to study the subject further, there’s a brilliant book called Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters by Robert Beverley Hale, which explains how famous artists used geometric shapes to analyse anatomy and to organise lights and shadows in figure drawing and portraiture. On the whole, I buy art books for the pictures, but this one’s well worth reading if you’re keen on figure or life drawing. I learned a lot from it. The first to recognise what it is, holds up their picture for confirmation. If they’re right (after all the drawings have been shared) they get to choose and describe the next subject. You really do not have to be good at drawing to play this game. And if the results go off-piste, which happens all the time with us – so much the funnier. And it really doesn’t matter if your descriptive skills are at the beginner stage. Use your hands and fingers to help you.

Cartoonists are famous for breaking down their subjects into basic geometric shapes and the internet is full of examples such as this one at:

www.how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com/draw-

animals.html which readily lend themselves to Arty Games and to helping budding artists get started.

Sign up to their mailing list at www.firstsite.uk/newsletter to find out when they’re being shared (my own first pack arrived in my email box today).

Famous artists – Anthony Gormley, Gillian Wearing, Idris Khan etc have designed fun activities for you to make and do at home and the website’s adding more artist’s designs every week. You can afterwards share your artworks on their Online Studio. Anyone can post their work there.

Just make sure it’s original work and not something you’ve copied from anything made by a living artist.

Plus: HOT FROM THE PRESS! Many more ARTY GAMES can be downloaded free from the local FirstSite Gallery’s website.

Short StorY

Competition

We asked our learners to submit a short story, no more than 500 words, to win some fabulous prizes in our writing competition! They did not disappoint. After reading over 80 amazing tales, we selected three winners; ACL Choice, Author’s Choice and People’s Choice.

To read the full stories, visit our website aclessex.com

ACL’s Choice was chosen by a range of English & Creative Writing tutors from ACL Essex, Author’s Choice was selected by local Author Liz Trenow and we asked the people of Essex to choose their favourite to win the People’s choice.

ACL’s Choice Author’s Choice

People’s Choice

The Hold-Up by Diane

“I wrote The ‘Hold-up’ initially as an attempt at ‘flash fiction’ and from the outset my aim was to generate pace and atmosphere in the narrative. My influence for the story came from American movies which I love like Wild at Heart and Badlands. I decided to use it for the ACL 500-Word Story Competition as I thought it could fit the bill.

I have done two writing courses previously with ACL Colchester, both of which I found very helpful in allowing me to develop my writing skills. My first course was a few years ago. The tutor then was Dot and it was an initial creative writing course. More recently I took a course on how to progress your novel with Emma.”

Progress by Linda

“Great news that I’ve won the Author’s Choice. I am totally made up! I’ve attended a few Creative Writing courses now, which have allowed me to explore my love of writing further. I discover new things and take inspiration away with me from each lesson. My tutor has been so supportive and encouraged me to believe in myself. She helped me understand that writing has no limits, anyone can do it at any age. My story shows how not being open to progress can sometimes have unexpected repercussions.”

Froglet in the Garden by Cameron

“This was based on our garden pond that my Dad created especially for me as I love nature and looking at books on animals. I can often be found down the garden watching the creatures living in the pond, particularly frogs and newts. This has helped keep me calm during the lockdown. Winning has inspired me to write more stories.”