It's all about a traveller who visits a village and is made to feel unwelcome -  the villagers seem insular and miserable.

The traveller lights a camp fire and begins to boil a pot containing stones - the villages slowly creep out to see what is happening and he invites them to contribute food to the pot - in the end the villagers begin to communicate with each other and their mood gets lighter.

We went on to talk about community and it's meaning. The group as individuals were invited to create a picture from their thoughts about the story. Lots of different art materials were available.

Cyanotype photographic printing process workshop. One thing cyanotype was used for in the past was making blueprints.  Join our free workshop on Sunday 14th May at the Station House, 2pm-4pm all materials provided. You can book now by sending a message through our contact page.  

What a great weekend...

Andrew Stringer, local Burnham photographer, led a fantastic weekend workshop of creativity and discovery.  
The group gathered at 10.30 on Saturday morning and after a short, yet informative discussion around photography and some practical tips on taking black & white photos, we headed off to the allotments
to get snapping.

The weather was perfect, not only for taking pictures, but also to stop, chat and enjoy the sunshine with many allotment gardeners, as we went round. Everyone we spoke to were really interested in what we were doing and the progress of project.

The afternoon and Sunday were spent developing the negatives and contact sheets.  Then came the difficult bit - choosing two negatives to develop into pictures. Most people seemed to be able to decide on their absolute favourite but struggled to choose a second. We all chipped in and helped each other decide. 

We have two more art sessions on the 5th and 12th March and then on the 8th and 9th April it's our photography weekend. NB These are our new dates for this workshop.

What a great way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon - even if I do say so myself. The art session today was all about observational drawing. linked to gardening and the allotments. Triss supplied lots of different outdoor/gardening themed objects and asked the participants to set up three still life sets.

​The actual drawing session was split into two parts. Participants firstly rotated around the sets spending 10 minutes at each one drawing. I was the time keeper and I'm told the middle ten minutes seemed very short !!!

After everyone had visited the three sets they were invited to choose one and undertake a more in-depth piece of work. Some great pictures were produced and we agreed it felt very relaxing. Of course the afternoon ended with a cup of tea and biscuits.

Our new series of three art workshops start this Sunday 2-4pm at the Station House, followed by sessions on the 5th and 12th of March.

The art sessions are going well and we've started on the research. We're off to Essex Records Office on Friday 10th March to do some background work - there's space for a couple more people to join us, so if you're interested then please get in touch.

We're tentatively starting to think about the layout of the booklet. We'd appreciate anyone with graphics/ IT/ design skills giving  some assistance  - or how about helping out by proof reading !!