Becky Smyllie

Run by Creative Support the Burkhart Centre is open to the public to enjoy affordable creative workshops. On Wednesday's I run a textiles workshop where everyone is welcome to explore new skills such as sewing, knitting, weaving and many more.

orking with Praxis Care we created a collection of exciting flags to carry round the Day Parade and celebrate Praxis Care as a service.

We taught a few new pattern making techniques and gave everyone the opportunity to write what they thought of Praxis Care and their journeys within the service.

The day was a huge success! Everyone arrived and was given a Praxis Care t-shirt, we had our faces painted with patterns from the flags and then carried them round the track for the thousands of spectators to see.

After the parade we went back to the workshop space to redisplay the work. Mega phones hanging from the ceiling and flags crinkled from the wind, it was a great addition to the project.

This display will be going on tour again so keep an eye out for more updates...

As part of a research project I was invited to represent ArtAnon in a community event with a full programme of workshops run by independent community organisations.

The participants explored challenging concepts and learnt new skills whilst expressing their own opinions.

This workshop was designed by myself and Tom Thompson, an experience community workshop leader. We were inspired by the changes in the Junior Oxford Dictionary which saw the removal of a long list of words relating to nature and replaced with contemporary words relating to technology and digital information.

The concept was introduced through some ice-breaker drawing experiments and the participants worked in groups to create a range of posters that expressed their opinion on the issue.

Mirabel Studios opened its doors to a group of embroidery enthusiasts showing their practice in a contemporary setting.

My 'stitching' was the first live body painting I have done. My wonderful model posed on a plinth for the whole evening whilst I built up stitch by stitch as the viewers walked round. This piece represented my love of repetitive mark making as well as how much textiles influences my practice, but with a twist...

Funded by O2 ThinkBig this project is the biggest that ArtAnon has taken on yet.

We received a kind donation from Fred Aldous, Manchester, of two large rolls of paper (10m long x 1.5m wide)! We took it round 8 different workshops and created two huge drawings.

The drawings were displayed in full length in the brand new event space at ArtWork, Greengate.

As part of the exhibition we hung the work from Sapphormation Festival.

One of the workshops during Drawn Together lead to a promotion video showing some exciting drawing at double speed...

Our tests before the project lead to a few new ideas and a design for our workshop poster.

ArtAnon's first local festival on Oxford Road, Manchester.

Sapphormation is a women's event with a busy programme of talks and creative activities.

In the Art Tent we set up a portraiture table, using drawing and collage to create some abstract images. Hung on the washing lines, they created a display in themselves for the festival visitors to explore and admire.

For the Victoria Baths exhibition in October, with Juncture...

@JunctureMCR
juncturemcr.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.html

Image source: 'A Glass Menagerie' - Link: http://aglassmenagerie.net/southwest2.html

Idea for a 'flat' face painting and a headdress

Body painting test for a 'flat' image

More complex hand painting trying to make a 'flat' image

Painting test in a window.

Other views of the painting

Image source: http://hqwallbase.com/141195-stained-glass/
Colour inspiration

For International Womens Day, ArtAnon delivered a handful of Origami Workshops during the month of February 2014. The project was funded by Manchester City Council.

The workshops spread awareness of International Women’s Day whilst creating and experimenting with origami.

All the origami created by community groups who attended ArtAnon’s Tessellate workshops were collectively presented on International Women’s Day. The origami installation was displayed at Manchester Craft and Design Centre on Saturday 8th March.

We invited members of the public and all those who created the work to this beautiful venue to celebrate the achievements made and to raise awareness for International Womens Day.

Music was provided by Manchester based DJ, (B)ronwen who played tracks inspired and created by women throughout the evening.

All event photographs taken by Elizabeth Winstanley.

I pitched for a space in the brand new gallery at MMU. The work will be presented alongside the degree show. The space I have been given is a wall measuring 3.5m x 8m approx. My drawings aims to be 3m x 7m leaving a very thin white border in each side and thicker borders of black on top and bottom.

I'm building the piece in strips due to the size and time limitations. Each strip has 150 portraits and each metre needs 3 strips.

This is my studio space at the moment, the role of paper takes up a whole wall and hangs on pole that's hooked to the wall. The bottom of the drawing get roled up at the bottom onto another pole as I move on.

The image above shows the beginning stages of at strip, lining the portraits next to each other.

The images above and below show the drawing roled out at 2m. Feeling OK about it so far but will be much happier once it's longer!

Trying out some body painting images for the Embroidery catalogue cover... Got a bit carried away

I concentrated on three drawings, layering them with up to 50 layers of the same image.

The pin sample below has a video to go with it that shows the movement of the shadows.

Using a projector to create layered drawings that will eventually cover the page with pen. These are overlays of one of the abstract self-portraits I did in the beginning. The movement around the page using the projector reflects the movement created in the original drawing. The idea is to build a surface rather than an image on the paper.