The feel-good focus: art just for fun

The feel-good focus

Art just for fun

With the sudden popularity of adult colouring books, have you wondered if adults felt they needed permission to colour in? Or have adults felt a barrier to play?

As I have been sorting and packing to move I have been rediscovering and contemplating objects and projects made by myself and my children over the years. Creativity in any form is valued in our home as simply doing something if for no other reason. Doing something always beats doing nothing, and I've asserted that being bored is being boring. I've found a painted corrugated cardboard cutout of a house, a soft toy crudely stab-stitched together from recycled t shirt fabric, a handmade book cover screen printed with a kid-constructed robot stencil and story books clumsily handwritten, illustrated and stapled together. There are paintings in nail polish, fired and unfired pieces in clay, and drawings, and drawings, and drawings. Old school projects include a small handwoven mat and a life-sized chicken wire and strapping tape Egyptian mummy.

Made in play with the value and meaning in the making.

Fun and funky nail polish painting.

Our Christmas tree for the past six years has been an upcycled wonder made from a coreflute sign found under the house embellished with our green handprints on brown paper wrapping from the curtains. When the paper ran out we finished it using the packaging from a Safe toilet tissue multipack.

Without going into what I've amassed personally, the point is there are many reasons for creating something, but pure enjoyment is an important one. This brings us back to play.

Over the past couple of weeks I've stolen time from seriousness to work on a paper doll set I've wanted to make for a long time. It was a spontaneous decision, and although it is a product, I made it for the fun of making and for the fun of using. She's the Vintage Wallflower 1995. My daughter, around the same age I was that year, worked with me in the design process which really added to the feel-good factor - quality time can become hard to rope teenage daughters into!

Final working proofs for Vintage Wallflower 1995 paper doll set project.

The underlying purpose when children play is self-directed learning and skills development, packaged in fun and entertainment. They will do this on their own, but also socially - and guided play is an important part of early education at home and institutionally. By playing as adults, we reap the same benefits socially, physically and mentally improving our own sense of wellbeing.

I went out to Avalon Arts and Function Centre recently where the initiative, Art Laundromat is being developed around adult education with a focus on fun and permission to play, and I aim to participate in their program in the near future. While I am still offering linocut classes over May and drawing classes through Sharon Jensen in St John Street, I am launching Shoestring Printmaking sessions over winter focused on improvisation, play and mixed media messiness. There are still technical elements to this, but like adult colouring, it's about fun in the moment.

Art, play and fun: the concept for upcoming Shoestring Printmaking workshops.

One final note here in the spirit of art and the inner child: my kids have wanted a little family exhibition for a while, and as all our treasures are unearthed in preparation to move, we're setting them aside to exhibit in June. Small achievements will be held in FLOWA studio, 25-26 June.